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Syria Claims It Downed ISIL Jets As Kobani Fighting Continues

22.10.2014 18:57

The Syrian air force shot down two fighter jets belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) last week, Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi was quoted as saying in foreign media reports, as the extremist group continues to shell the Syrian border town of Kobani. Referring to a Syrian.

The Syrian air force shot down two fighter jets belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) last week, Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi was quoted as saying in foreign media reports, as the extremist group continues to shell the Syrian border town of Kobani.

Referring to a Syrian monitoring group's statement released on Friday, the AP reported that Iraqi pilots trained under former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had joined ISIL and were conducting training flights in three captured fighter jets at an air base in Aleppo province.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIL, which has seized swathes of land in Syria and Iraq, had been flying the planes over the captured al-Jarrah military airport east of Aleppo.

AP quoted Zoabi as saying that the Syrian air force was searching for the third jet but had destroyed two of them. This is the first time Damascus has acknowledged that ISIL are flying fighter jets.

The US has been working on building a strong coalition against ISIL. Turkey has been reluctant to contribute to this coalition and insists on removing the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria from power as a priority. Turkey is also pushing for the establishment of a no-fly zone and a safe zone inside Syria to curb the refugee influx into Turkey.

ISIL supporters circulated a video on Saturday showing a jet flying at low altitude, which they said was one of the jets flown by ISIL, according to Reuters.

The clashes between ISIL and the Kurdish fighters continued on Wednesday in Kobani, where the US-led coalition conducted air strikes against the extremist group in the eastern part of the town, according to Turkish media reports.

In the meantime, the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) will initially send 200 peshmerga fighters equipped with heavy weaponry to the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani via Turkey to help the town's defense against ISIL, the Anadolu news agency said in a report on its website on Wednesday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu announced earlier this week that Turkey is assisting peshmerga forces crossing into Syria to help Kobani's defense, saying Turkey has never wanted Kobani to fall. He clarified on Tuesday that the passage of peshmerga has not yet taken place and that talks on the issue were continuing.

Quoting a Turkmen deputy who attended a closed session of the KRG Parliament to discuss the peshmerga deployment to Kobani, Anadolu reported that as part of a first stage in the effort, 200 fighters will cross into Kobani. The peshmerga use a route that traverses the Turkish border districts of Silopi, Nusaybin and finally Suruç, right across the border from Kobani.

KRG Minister of Peshmerga Affairs Mustafa Qadir told the parliamentary session that the peshmerga forces are being sent to Kobani at the request of KRG President Massoud Barzani. The request was approved by Turkey, according to Turkmen deputy Aydın Maruf. “This is the first time in Iraq that troops are being sent abroad, and it is happening with the peshmerga,” Maruf told Anadolu.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)



 
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