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Refugees flee Islamic State bid to claim strategic town as airstrikes expand Britain, Denmark and Belgium join air campaign against Islamic State in Iraq
(about 4 hours later)
BEIRUT — Islamic State fighters backed by artillery renewed attempts to overrun a strategic border city in Syria’s Kurdish region Friday after airstrikes failed to slow the assault, activists and witnesses said. LONDON — Three European nations – including Britain – joined the widening U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq on Friday, even as the group’s fighters renewed their attempt to overrun a strategic border city in Syria.
The battle for Kobane — known in Arabic as Ayn al-Arab — has become a critical showdown along the Turkish-Syrian border. Britain’s belated entry, seven weeks after the United States began carrying out strikes, followed an overwhelming parliamentary vote to authorize attacks. Denmark and Belgium also opted to join the fight.
The defense is a key test for the strength of Syrian Kurdish forces and the overall ability to aid ground forces as part of a widening campaign of air attacks in Syria and Iraq, which received backing from Britain and other European nations on Friday. But as the coalition expanded, its constraints became clear. All three countries that authorized military action on Friday decided to limit their involvement to Iraq. Meanwhile, Islamic State militants demonstrated that airstrikes have failed to slow their assault on critical positions within Syria.
Gaining control of Kobane would give the Islamic State hold over a major stretch of the border and open more potential supply lines even as airstrikes try to erode the militants’ financial underpinnings. Along the Turkish-Syrian border, Islamic State fighters backed by artillery fire pushed toward the city of Kobane -- known in Arabic as Ayn al-Arab – as Syrian Kurdish forces dug in for a key test of their strength.
The clashes also have send hundreds more refugees streaming toward the Turkish border to deepen a humanitarian crisis. More than 140,000 people already fill makeshift camps in Turkey or are huddled on the Syrian side of the barbed wire marking the heavily guarded frontier. The United States and its Arab allies broadened their campaign to targets in Syria this week, after a drumbeat of American strikes in Iraq since early August.
But no European ally has been willing to join the Syria campaign – raising the prospect that Islamic State could try to use it as a refuge.
“Simply allowing [Islamic State] to retreat across an invisible border is no answer,” said Peter Hain, a member of parliament and former cabinet minister, during Britain’s daylong debate.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, scarred by a humiliating defeat last year when he sought permission to launch strikes against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, did not try to win approval for attacks in Syria this time around.
Instead, he limited his proposal to Iraq, where he had a clear consensus thanks to the Iraqi government’s invitation for Western help. No such invitation exists from Syria, and British opposition leader Ed Miliband has suggested he won’t support widening the campaign without a U.N. resolution that is unlikely to ever come.
Friday’s House of Commons vote endorsing Cameron’s plan to deploy six Tornado fighter jets to Iraq was lopsided, at 524 to 43.
Still, there was opposition from the backbenches, both from hawks who wanted to go further, as well as from doves who insisted the country had not learned the right lessons from more than a decade of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But Cameron argued that the Islamic State was impossible to ignore, given the threat it poses to Britain.
“This is not a threat on the far side of the world. Left unchecked, we will face a terrorist caliphate on the shores of the Mediterranean and bordering a NATO member, with a declared and proven intention to attack our country and our people,” Cameron said as he opened the debate.
Cameron and others who support airstrikes were quick to differentiate Friday’s vote from the last time the British Parliament authorized military action in Iraq, in 2003. Cameron stressed that there would be no boots on the ground and said the air campaign would be marked more by “patience and persistence” than “shock and awe.”
The British contribution is modest, representing only a third the number of its jets that flew over Libya during the 2011 campaign against Moammar Gaddafi’s government. But it is similar to the commitment of other nations that have joined the coalition against the Islamic State, including France, the Netherlands and Australia.
While the British public was divided over joining the air campaign when the United States first launched strikes, opinion has solidified in favor of the idea in recent weeks — especially since Islamic State militants executed two American journalists and a British aid worker. At least two other Britons are known to be held by the group and have been forced to appear in Islamic State propaganda videos.
European counterterrorism officials have expressed deep concern that the Islamic State will try to carry out attacks on Western soil, perhaps employing some of the estimated 3,000 Europeans who have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight with the organization.
Cameron suggested Friday that there would be a strong case for expanding Britain’s air campaign to Syria — but said that would require a separate debate.
SUBHEAD
Meanwhile, the battle in Syria rages. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday that airstrikes by the U.S. and its Arab allies had disrupted Islamic State’s command and control, logistics and infrastructure in Syria.
But the group has continued its quest for territory. Gaining control of Kobane would give the Islamic State a hold over a major stretch of the border and open more potential supply lines even as airstrikes seek to erode the militants’ financial underpinnings.
The latest clashes have sent refugees streaming toward Turkey, adding to the estimated 1.5 million who have crossed into the neighboring country to escape Syria’s civil war since 2011.
Moustafa Oniedi, a Syrian Kurdish activist based near Kobane, said there are 10,000 Kurdish fighters amassed to defend the city.Moustafa Oniedi, a Syrian Kurdish activist based near Kobane, said there are 10,000 Kurdish fighters amassed to defend the city.
“[They] are ready to fight until their last breath,” he said by telephone. “Either they die or they win.”“[They] are ready to fight until their last breath,” he said by telephone. “Either they die or they win.”
Elsewhere in Syria, U.S.-led airstrikes further targeted oil facilities seized by the Islamic State and part of smuggling networks believed to bring up to $1 million a day, reports said. In Europe, more countries agreed to join the attacks in Iraq, but steered away from involvement in the more politically sensitive Syrian confrontations. The fighting appeared to intensify Friday after days of seesaw clashes. An activist monitoring Syrian events, Abu Jilan, said at least two airstrikes hit the Kobane area while Kurdish forces reclaimed several villages from retreating Islamic State fighters.
Denmark pledged seven F-16 fighters jets and Belgium dispatched six to join coalition in Iraq. In London, lawmakers approved Britain’s entry into the air campaign in Iraq — where Britain once had the second-largest foreign military contingent after the American-led invasion in 2003. But the Islamic State fighters regrouped after daybreak and launched a three-pronged attack around Kobane, said Oniedi, the activist. He claimed the airstrikes did not target frontline Islamic State positions, allowing them to quickly resume the siege. The U.S. military has not confirmed any airs attacks around Kobane.
“I believe it is our duty to take part,’’ British Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons. Among the latest airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition were ones targeting oil sites and Islamic State strongholds in the eastern Deir el-Zour province, according to reports from the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict. The area is also an important route connecting Islamic State territory in Syria and Iraq.
Near Kobane, the fighting appeared to intensify after days of seesaw clashes. Some of the airstrikes in Syria were carried out bywarplanes from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
An activist monitoring Syrian events, Abu Jilan, said at least two airstrikes hit the Kobane area while Kurdish forces reclaimed several villages from retreating Islamic State fighters. The Arab states are leading opponents of Syrian President Assad. Their assistance in the air campaign is likely tied to promises from the United States to sharply boost military aid to Syrian rebels seeking to oust Assad in a civil war that has claimed nearly 200,000 lives since 2011.
But the Islamic State fighters regrouped after daybreak and launched a three-pronged attack around Kobane, said the activist Oniedi. He claimed the airstrike did not target frontline Islamic State positions, allowing them to quickly resume the siege. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday that the United States and its Arab partners have launched 43 airstrikes in Syria, and the Pentagon has carried out more than 200 airstrikes on militant targets in Iraq since they were approved by President Obama on Aug. 7.
He said artillery and rockets were fired from some Islamic State positions and clashes moved within several miles of Kobane, whose surrounding villages have been nearly emptied as people fled toward Turkey — hoping they can find someway across the now-closed border. Collard reported from Beirut. Brian Murphy and Dan Lamothe contributed to this report from Washington.
The current refu­gee wave is added to an estimated 1.5 million people who have crossed into Turkey to escape Syria’s civil war since 2011.
The Pentagon has not confirmed any airstrikes on the Kobane area, but have given detailed accounts of repeated attacks on oil facilities and suspected Islamic State bases and convoys.
“The point was to render them incapable of using these refineries, which was a significant stream of revenue for them,” Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters Thursday.
The latest airstrikes hit oil sites and Islamic State strongholds in the eastern Deir el-Zour province, said reports from the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict. The area also an important cross-border route connecting Islamic State territory in Syria and Iraq.
The group said air raids also targeted the headquarters of the Islamic State in the eastern town of Mayadeen.
Various reports from activists cited casualties, but there were no details or ability to independently verify the claims.
Despite the emphasis on striking oil refineries, the Islamic State makes most of its money from crude oil. So the latest airstrikes will not be enough to shut down the flow of Islamic State oil, analysts said.
“The airstrikes on the oil refineries were tactically spectacular but strategically insignificant,” said Chris Harmer, a senior analyst with the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War who previously served with the U.S. military in Iraq and Bahrain.
“ISIS controls the oil fields. Destroying small oil refineries will just shift production from small refineries controlled by ISIS to micro refineries located in residential neighborhoods,” he said, using one of the acronyms for the Islamic State.
The airstrikes in Syria have included warplanes from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, part of an five-nation Arab coalition supporting the attacks. The Arab states also are leading opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Their assistance in the air campaign is likely tied to promises from the United States to sharply boost military aid to Syrian rebels seeking to oust Assad in a civil war that has claimed nearly 200,000 lives since 2011.
France has joined airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Iraq and other European partners have lined up to join them. The motion in the British parliament, however, did not address any potential action in Syria.
Pressure mounted in Britain to join the international coalition after the Islamic State released a video earlier this month showing the beheading of David Haines, a British aid worker captured last year. The Islamic State has beheaded several Arab and Western captives, including two American journalists.
Murphy reported from Washington. Craig Whitlock in Washington contributed to this report.