150 Iraqi Kurdish Fighters Heading To Kobani

Kurdish female fighters of the Women's Protection Unit participate in training at a military camp in Ras al-Ain city in Hasakah province, June 30, 2014. So you won't persuade these guys to stay home by showing them that Islamic State is evil, but you can show them it's foolish, overstretched, led by idiots, doomed. And that air strike on the hill does a very good job of conveying that message, in a way that doesn't depend on speaking fluent English or sharing any of the pundits' self-righteous opinions about justice or freedom. YPG fighters are now using snipers in an effort to prevent the ISIS militants from advancing farther, Minbic said. Gone are the days when Islamic State, also known as ISIS, was able to seize territory in both countries with relative ease. Its newfound problems, including a loss of oil revenue, raise questions about the extent to which it will be able to continue recruiting fighters who want to be with a winner. Under pressure from the United States, Turkey agreed last week to allow the peshmerga to reinforce the town. Mehdi Hassan's parents learned of their son's death when a picture of his body was posted on Twitter on 24 October. Hassan was 20 years old and had gone to Syria with four friends from his home town of Portsmouth in September 2013 to join the jihadist group Islamic State (IS, or Isis). His clique became known as the Pompey lads”. Of the men he travelled with, only one is still fighting: three are dead and another is in prison in the UK. For the past year, I have been in regular contact with the Pompey lads and their fellow British fighters in Syria to try to understand the motivations and mindset of western jihadists. Of 15 air strikes in Syria since Friday, 12 were aimed at "degrading and destroying their oil-producing, collecting, storage and transportation infrastructure," the US Central Command said. Three other strikes in Syria hit two IS positions kobane news near Kobane and a military camp in mainly jihadist-held Raqa province. Meanwhile, in Baghdad, a Sunni named as new defence minister, Khaled al-Obaidi, was a senior officer in the air force of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. When Jaman joined IS, it was not as organised or powerful as it is today. The group was known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (the Levant) - Isis - and had not yet embraced the nihilism for which it has come to be known. Even the leader of its greatest rival, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani of Jabhat al-Nusra, initially downplayed their rivalries. During an interview with al-Jazeera in December 2013, Jolani likened their differences to that of a family dispute; bickering at the dinner table rather than the fratricide it has become. The activists are demanding more help for the besieged Kurdish forces struggling to hold onto the Syrian town of Kobani. Some European countries are arming the Kurds , and the American-led coalition is carrying out airstrikes kobane news against the Islamic extremists, but protesters say it isn't enough. The Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office said Tuesday that three men have been in detention since March, while two others were charged in absentia. Over the weekend the SRF lost its largest stronghold near the northern city of Idlib to the Nusra Front. Nusra is Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, while the SRF has been groomed in recent months as a ground kobane news force to compliment U.S.-led airstrikes. The SRF has received heavy artillery from U.S. forces, including tank busting missiles that are highly coveted by rebels facing the Islamic State group.

The stories of the Portsmouth and Manchester boys offer a remarkable insight into the world of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. They also reveal the deep chasms within British society. Second- and third-generation immigrants of Muslim Asian origin continue to feel a profound detachment not just from the country in which they were born and educated but from their own families and communities, too. Many of their local leaders are too old to counter the charisma of millenarian propaganda and their experiences are too remote from those of their congregants. The Sunni militants want to seize the dams to bolster their claim they are building an actual state; the dams are key to irrigating the country's vast wheat fields and providing Iraqis with electricity. More ominously, kobane news the Islamic State has used its control over water facilities - including as many as four dams along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - to displace communities or deprive them of crucial water supplies.