Syrian refugees who escaped the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and fled to Turkey are suffering as bad weather hits a refugee camp. (Photo: Today's Zaman, Turgut Engin)
September 28, 2014, Sunday/ 18:29:40/ TODAY'S ZAMAN WITH WIRES / ISTANBUL
The seizure of the Syrian border town of Kobani by the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has prompted more than 150,000 refugees to flee and cross into Turkey.
Mostly women and children have been entering Turkey in search of a safe haven, escaping ISIL. Turkey has stepped up security measures in the region and armored vehicles were deployed to the border last week.
Air strikes likely carried out by a United States-led coalition struck an oil refinery in Syria held by ISIL on Sunday, a witness said, shaking buildings and sending flames shooting into the air near the Turkish border. Explosions lit the sky 'for two hours' at the refinery in the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad around 2:30 a.m. local time (2330 GMT Saturday), local businessman Mehmet Özer said.
'Our building was shaking and we saw fire, some 60 meters high, coming from the refinery,' said Özer, who lives in the nearby Turkish town of Akçakale.
US Central Command, which is overseeing the operation against ISIL, did not immediately comment on the strikes. A US-led coalition has been targeting oil installations controlled by the militants, aiming to crippling ISIL's finances, estimated to earn some $3 million a day.
ISIL launched an offensive to try and capture the border town of Kobani more than a week ago, besieging it from three sides. Kobani's strategic location has been blocking the ISIL fighters from consolidating their gains in northern Syria. The group tried to take the town in July but was repelled by local forces backed by Kurdish fighters from Turkey.
The US and five Arab allies launched an aerial campaign against the ISIL fighters last week with the aim of rolling back and ultimately crushing the extremist group, which has created a proto-state spanning the Syria-Iraq border. In seizing territory, ISIL has chased out tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis who belong to minority groups and has imposed its harsh interpretation of Islamic law on residents, including whipping and chopping off the hands of criminals.
ISIL has held Syrian activists, international aid workers and journalists captive, and most recently beheaded a British aid worker and two American journalists.
Some European countries are also contributing to the US's efforts in targeting the terrorist group in Iraq, including France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Britain. The coalition's efforts to strike at oil refineries is expected to be a long, slow task as most of the refineries held by ISIS are small and scattered across their territory.
Last week, ISIL fighters tightened their siege of Kobani, pushing back Kurdish armed groups and sending at least two shells into Turkish territory. Several hundred unarmed protesters who had gathered on the Turkish side of the border in solidarity with the Syrian Kurds broke through a barbed wire fence and rushed towards Kobani in an apparent bid to help defend it.
Turkey, already home to an estimated 1.5 million refugees from Syria's civil war, is pushing the US and its allies to create a safe haven for refugees inside Syrian territory. A safe haven along the border would require a no-fly zone policed by foreign jets.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, until now reluctant to commit to a frontline military role in the US-led campaign against ISIS, has said Turkish troops could be used to help set up such a zone.
The United Nations, which has warned that as many as 400,000 people could flee Kobani to Turkey, has said the number of displaced makes the influx from the besieged border town the most serious yet of Syria's civil war.
Many of those who have fled were from poor farming communities in the semi-arid terrain and were forced to leave their most valuable possessions behind -- particularly livestock and vehicles. Small crowds of Syrian Kurds gathered at crossing points along the border to plead with Turkish officials to be allowed to go back and collect their possessions, their vehicles tantalizingly visible through the barbed-wire fence. A steady stream of new refugees kept arriving over the weekend, many of them herding cattle.
Turkish locals are also worried due to the escalating clashes along the border. Four mortar shells landed in Turkey near the border with Syria on Saturday, injuring two people, as ISIS militants clashed with Kurdish forces defending a Syrian border town, local officials said. One of the mortars blew a large hole in an empty minibus parked near Tavşanlı, a village close to Kobani.
Turkish authorities in the border province of Şanlıurfa have blocked the main road to the Syrian border as security worsens in the area, an official at the local governor's office said.
Meanwhile, Germany's army has started training 32 Kurdish peshmerga fighters at an army school in Bavaria to support them in their fight against ISIL extremists.
A spokesman for the German Defense Ministry said Sunday that the 32 Kurdish fighters would stay in Germany until Oct. 3 to receive weapons training.
Germany also began delivering arms to the Kurds in northern Iraq last week, dispatching a shipment of 50 hand-held anti-tank weapons, 520 G3 rifles and 20 machine guns. In total, the German plan calls for arming 10,000 Kurdish fighters with some 70 million euros ($90 million) worth of equipment.
Posted by Unknown on Sunday, September 28, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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