Thursday, 9 October 2014

Air strikes 'stall IS advance' on Syrian border town

US-led forces have continued air strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants near the besieged Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobane.
A senior local official said IS had been pushed back towards the edge of the town as a result of the strikes and advances by the town's defenders.
Earlier reports said the militants had controlled almost a third of Kobane, on the Turkish-Syrian border.
Turkey has ruled out a ground operation on its own against IS in Syria.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu renewed calls for the creation of a no-fly zone along the Syrian side of the border during talks in Ankara with new Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg.
Turkey - a Nato member - also wants co-ordinated action against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
This would include preventing Syrian government aircraft from flying near the Turkish border. Turkey fears that Mr Assad's forces would be the main beneficiaries of an IS retreat.
It also wants to ease the influx of refugees into Turkey, and is under intense pressure to do more to help the Kurdish forces in Kobane.
The UN's special envoy in Syria, Steffan de Mistura, said on Wednesday that everything possible had to be done to save Kobane, and the town's fall would threaten Turkey itself.
The Turkish government won parliamentary authorisation for possible military action last week.

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