Three people in Helsinki have started a hunger strike in protest at what they see as inadequate action from the EU and the Finnish state to help defend the besieged Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane.
The latest air strikes came as heavily armed peshmerga forces were poised to cross the Turkish border into Kobane to help the local Kurdish militia that has held out against a relentless assault by ISIL militants for weeks. Under heavy pressure from the United States, Turkey announced last week it would allow fighters from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish province to cross its territory to join the fight for Kobane.
Washington has forged an alliance of Western and Arab nations to combat IS and the coalition has carried out a barrage of air strikes on the jihadists in recent weeks. The group arose in the chaos of Syria's civil war, an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime that has killed more than 180,000 people and forced millions from their homes in the last three-and-a-half years.
That's why IS has even taken the really scary step of bringing the Chechen to Kobane. You know why you bring in the Chechen? Because balrogs don't actually exist. Chechens are the next best thing, and the Chechen in question, Abu Omar al-Shishani ( Omar the Chechen ”), was transferred this week from the Sinjar front, where he was in charge of slaughtering Yazidi refugees. Omar has been brought to Kobane as a fixer, with the job of closing down the border before reinforcements can reach the YPG.
For the last several months, news reports about the onward march of the fascists of Islamic state” have echoed that same sense of inevitability. Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, fell in June. Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, fell the next kobane news day. In August, the Yazidi stronghold Sinjar fell. Every day brought new reports of victories for the Islamists. ISIS seemed unstoppable. Note: Strikes were not reported comprehensively day by day, so some may be missing from daily tallies.
The video, the latest in a series featuring 43-year-old kidnapped reporter John Cantlie, shows him in a war-damaged town, talking to the camera and rejecting US claims that the "mujahedeen" are in retreat. There is no indication in the video of when it was shot, but Cantlie refers to a news report that was broadcast by the BBC on October 17 and to remarks made by a US military spokesman on October 16.
In addition, ISIS also wants to cut Kobane from the Kurdish Mountain Region (Kurd Dagh) or Canton of Afrin and Canton of Jazira (Hasakah). As of now, moving between three Kurdish Cantons is difficult. According to local officials, currently hundreds of civilians are also held hostage in Jarablus and Tall Abyad. Also some 130 Kurdish students who were kidnapped by the group remain in captivity for over a month after they were kidnapped as they were returning from school exams in Aleppo. Despite all calls from international human rights groups those children and other civilians are still not released and are being used as a bargaining chip to pressurise YPG, according to local human rights defenders.
ISIS released a video of Foley's beheading last month. This month, the group released videos showing the slayings of two other Western hostages, American journalist Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines. As a U.S. soldier, Jordan Matson never saw combat, yet now he's in Syria, fighting for the Kurdish militia. "All my life, I've wanted to be a soldier," he tells CNN's Ivan Watson. It's been extremely hot, they were living on meagre rations and had to be sparing with water.
The centre of the town was still in Kurdish hands, Abdurrahman said. The two Isis flags were still flying in the east of the city on Tuesday, with a Kurdish flag flying in the centre. After initially setting up positions to the east, south and west of the town, Isis shelled Kobani for days to try to loosen up its defences. Just across the frontier in Turkey artillery, gunfire and smoke testified to the intensity of the fight all day on Monday.
A US military airdrop of weapons meant for Kurdish fighters fell into the hands of the Islamic State group near the Syrian battleground town of Kobane. The US Air Force parachuted crates of weapons, ammunition and medical kobane news supplies on Sunday night to resupply Kurds defending the Syrian town of Kobane from IS militants. I told Obama that the PYD is in the same class as the PKK. I said it is also a terrorist organization,” Mr. Erdogan said.
The latest air strikes came as heavily armed peshmerga forces were poised to cross the Turkish border into Kobane to help the local Kurdish militia that has held out against a relentless assault by ISIL militants for weeks. Under heavy pressure from the United States, Turkey announced last week it would allow fighters from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish province to cross its territory to join the fight for Kobane.
Washington has forged an alliance of Western and Arab nations to combat IS and the coalition has carried out a barrage of air strikes on the jihadists in recent weeks. The group arose in the chaos of Syria's civil war, an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime that has killed more than 180,000 people and forced millions from their homes in the last three-and-a-half years.
That's why IS has even taken the really scary step of bringing the Chechen to Kobane. You know why you bring in the Chechen? Because balrogs don't actually exist. Chechens are the next best thing, and the Chechen in question, Abu Omar al-Shishani ( Omar the Chechen ”), was transferred this week from the Sinjar front, where he was in charge of slaughtering Yazidi refugees. Omar has been brought to Kobane as a fixer, with the job of closing down the border before reinforcements can reach the YPG.
For the last several months, news reports about the onward march of the fascists of Islamic state” have echoed that same sense of inevitability. Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, fell in June. Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, fell the next kobane news day. In August, the Yazidi stronghold Sinjar fell. Every day brought new reports of victories for the Islamists. ISIS seemed unstoppable. Note: Strikes were not reported comprehensively day by day, so some may be missing from daily tallies.
ISIS released a video of Foley's beheading last month. This month, the group released videos showing the slayings of two other Western hostages, American journalist Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines. As a U.S. soldier, Jordan Matson never saw combat, yet now he's in Syria, fighting for the Kurdish militia. "All my life, I've wanted to be a soldier," he tells CNN's Ivan Watson. It's been extremely hot, they were living on meagre rations and had to be sparing with water.
The centre of the town was still in Kurdish hands, Abdurrahman said. The two Isis flags were still flying in the east of the city on Tuesday, with a Kurdish flag flying in the centre. After initially setting up positions to the east, south and west of the town, Isis shelled Kobani for days to try to loosen up its defences. Just across the frontier in Turkey artillery, gunfire and smoke testified to the intensity of the fight all day on Monday.
A US military airdrop of weapons meant for Kurdish fighters fell into the hands of the Islamic State group near the Syrian battleground town of Kobane. The US Air Force parachuted crates of weapons, ammunition and medical kobane news supplies on Sunday night to resupply Kurds defending the Syrian town of Kobane from IS militants. I told Obama that the PYD is in the same class as the PKK. I said it is also a terrorist organization,” Mr. Erdogan said.
Several papers use fire analogies, with tabloid Posta referring to "days of fire". Opposition Cumhuriyet says "fire surrounds Turkey", and left-wing Taraf worries that "Kobane fire burns us from the inside". Only left-wing Birgun is supportive of the protests, running a provocative headline comparing the governing AKP party with Islamic State - "IS in Kobane, AKP in Turkey". Alleged ISIS militants stand next to an ISIS flag atop a hill in Kobani on Monday, October 6.
Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala accused the demonstrators of "betraying their own country" and warned them to stop protesting or encounter "unpredictable" consequences. But the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party
An education official from Iraq's Niveneh province says that the youngsters are everywhere now, carrying weapons in the streets, manning checkpoints and watching people to make sure they are not smoking and that women are covering their faces. Little has been heard in recent days of the fight going on at the top of Mount Sinjar, but by all accounts the Yezidi fighters, backed by the Kurdish Peshmerga, are holding their own against the Islamic State.
For Turkish Kurds, the assault on Kobane is an attack on their own people. In Diyarbakir, the Kurdish capital, 150 miles to the northeast, young men took to the streets to protest against the Turkish government, which they accuse of helping Isis by giving it arms and allowing its fighters to cross the border. Neslihan Coban, 43, mourned her son Masum, 23, who was stabbed to death in the street while protesting against the siege of Kobane.
In Baghdad, an Iraqi security official said al-Kurdi was a member of Ansar al-Islam, a Sunni militant group with ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, who was active in the early 2000s. Al-Kurdi later joined the Islamic State group, the official said. The Iraqi official said al-Kurdi is also from Halabja and is wanted by Iraqi authorities. He refused to give the man's real name when pressed by The Associated Press.

The U.S. and its allies have been reluctant to send ground troops to take on ISIS in either Syria or Iraq, fearing a high death toll and vulnerability to retaliatory attacks. In the case of Kobani, the political stakes have been even higher. The Kurdish town is defended by the People's Protection Units or YPG — a group with close links to a designated terrorist organization, the Kurdistan Worker's Party or PKK.
A senior state official in the nearby town of Suruc said soldiers used tear gas but were not aware of any deaths or injuries from a shooting, CNN Turk reported. The military General Staff did not 
