US airdrops arms and ammunition to Kurds fighting to retain control of Kobani

The US has airdropped arms, ammunition and supplies to Kurds who are fighting to retain control of Kobani and ensure that the city does not fall into the hands of the Islamic State militants foxnews.com.

It seems C-130 cargo planes carried out a number of drops of arms and supplies provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq and the intention was to enable the Kurds maintain continued resistance to Islamic State efforts to take full control of Kobani. The items have reached the Kurds and there was no resistance on the ground or in air from Syria.
The airdrops were of 27 bundles of small arms, ammunition and medical supplies and were the first of their kind. It came after weeks of U.S. and coalition airstrikes in and near Kobani. U.S. Central Command (CentCom) has revealed that it had launched 11 airstrikes overnight in the area.

The Turkish government had opposed any sort of assistance by the US to the Kurds because it views the Kurds as an enemy. Therefore, US President Barack Obama had called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the situation in Syria and notify him of the plan to make airdrops.
The reaction of President Erdogan is not known.

Islamic State militants are learning to fly MiG aircrafts

Islamic State militants are now learning to fly fighter aircrafts bbc.com – this has been made possible by Iraqi pilots who have joined Islamic State and who are now training its members in Syria to fly fighter aircraft.

According to a UK-based activist group that monitors the conflict, it seems the IS has got three aircraft and witnesses had seen the planes being flown around a military airport in Aleppo.
Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the SOHR, has revealed that the IS was using Iraqi officers who were pilots under ex-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to train fighters in Syria.
The number of pilots who have defected is not known but, as per witnesses, the planes appeared to be MiG-21 or MiG-23 models. The IS has three planes which it captured earlier from the Syrian military in Aleppo and Raqqa.

However, the US Central Command spokesman has indicated that the Pentagon was "not aware" of IS conducting any flight operations in Syria or elsewhere.

U S boots could return to the ground in Iraq

President Barack Obama has admitted that the US intelligence agencies had not only underestimated the threat from Islamic State militants but had also overestimated the ability and will of Iraq's army to fight nzherald.co.nz.
House Speaker John Boehner has expressed an opinion that the US may have "no choice" but to send in American troops in case the preset strategy of a mix of US-led airstrikes and a ground campaign reliant on Iraqi forces, Kurdish fighters and soon-to-be trained Syrian rebels fails to reap any benefits.
Boehner has agreed that President Obama did have the power to order airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, but he feels that Congress should consider a resolution authorizing the use of force for this specific mission. In order to do this, Boehner has indicated that he would bring lawmakers back to Washington - they are not set to return until after the November 4 election - if Obama did want to seek such a resolution.
Boehner has made the position quite clear - if no one else was able to step up, America would have no choice but to send in Americans because the IS are barbarians. They intend to kill Americans and if they are not destroyed first, the world would have to pay the price.

Iraqi Prime Minister reveals IS militants plots to attack subways in New York and Paris

Haidar al-Abadi, Iraq's prime minister, has revealed that captured Islamic State militants have indicated to Iraqi intelligence agents of plots to attack subways in the United States and Paris, however, the French and American officials apparently do not have any such information nzherald.co.nz.
No one in the US government was aware of such a plot, and it was never brought up in meetings with Iraqi officials this week in New York. French officials contacted by a section of the media were also not aware of such a plot.
Al-Abadi has clarified that the purported plot was the work of foreign fighters who had joined the Islamic State group in Iraqi, including French and US nationals. The plotters were not Iraqis but French and US nationals.
The Iraqi PM is attending the annual General Assembly and, in his words, the threat is very much alive because it is a network. President Barack Obama has met with Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi.
New York is the home to the country's largest subway system and John Miller, the New York Police Department's top counterterror official, has indicated that they were aware of the Iraqi official's statements and FBI and other federal partners are assessing the threat potentials.

Tony Blair feels airpower is not enough to defeat the IS

Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of Britain, has remarked that only airpower would not be enough to tackle the IS and Britain should not rule out sending forces into Syria and Iraq to counter the threat posed by Islamic State militants.
It seems he has penned a 6,500-word essay in which Tony Blair has admitted that while there is no desire for ground engagement in the region, it needs to be understood that airpower alone would not be enough to defeat the group.
He did not mince his words when he said that while carrying out combat with adversaries like the ISIS, there can be an abundance of diplomacy, all necessary relief of humanitarian suffering, every conceivable statement of condemnation which we can muster. But, until and unless these are accompanied by physical combat, we will mitigate the problem but not overcome it.
He goes on to add that airpower is certainly a major component, especially in view of new weapons available to us. But the fact remains that airpower alone will not suffice.
His logic is infallible - the enemy is fanatical, because they are prepared both to kill and to die. Hence, strategies also need to be prepared accordingly.
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US carries out air strikes on ISIS near Haditha Dam in western Iraq

In order to protect its interests and those of Iraq, the US has now carried out a series of air strikes on Islamic State militants close to the vital Haditha dam in western Iraq bbc.com.
These are among the more than 130 air strikes carried out since early August.
The latest US strikes, the first in the area, were to protect the Iraqi forces and Sunni tribesmen in control of the dam. The Islamic State fighters have targeted a number of dams in their offensive and have captured the facility at Fallujah.
A US official has clarified that the strikes were carried out at the request of the Iraqi government and in keeping with the US mission to protect its personnel and facilities in Iraq.
The Pentagon's press secretary, Rear Admiral John Kirby, has added that these strikes were meant to prevent terrorists from further threatening the security of the dam, which remains under control of Iraqi security forces, with support from Sunni tribes.
The US has carried out a number of air strikes to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces as they try to halt the advance of the IS militants in the north and west.
The IS militants had taken the largest dam, at Mosul, but US air strikes helped force them out and it had attempted to capture Haditha dam, on the Euphrates valley in western Anbar province – this is Iraq's second largest dam.
Incidentally, IS also controls other key national assets like several oil and gas fields in western Iraq and Syria.
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US in a limbo – it wants to eliminate IS militants but without boots on the ground

That the Islamic State is a serious threat to the US goes without saying and with its declared policy of ‘no US boots on the ground’, the big shots in White House and the Pentagon are working overtime to evolve a suitable strategy news.sky.com.
The US is, therefore, trying to form a sort of "core coalition" to battle Islamic State militants in Iraq. To achieve this, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel have called for support as they held talks with officials from 10 nations on the sidelines of the NATO summit to build a strategy to defeat IS.
As John Kerry has remarked – there is a need to attack the IS in ways that prevent them from taking over territory, to bolster the Iraqi security forces and others in the region who are prepared to take them on, without committing troops of our own. That would be a red line for all concerned – there should be no boots on the ground.
Instead of direct military strikes, the 10 nations could provide intelligence, equipment or weapons. The 10 nations are US, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has added that there has to be a comprehensive response to the ISIL challenge.
The beheading of two American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff by the IS and the death of a senior IS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in a US drone strike have led to the formation of a coalition.
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IS militants recruit children as fighters, put on public display bodies of those killed

The UN has released a statement in which it has said that Islamic State militants have committed "mass atrocities" in Syria, including the recruitment of children as fighters bbc.com. Investigators have also reported that the IS is waging a campaign of fear in northern Syria by carrying out amputations, public executions and whippings. The bodies of those who are killed are put on public display for several days thereby terrorizing the local population. Other atrocities include women who have been lashed for not abiding by the dress code of the IS. In Raqqa, children as young as 10 are being recruited and trained at IS camps.
Paulo Pinheiro, the chairman of the commission, has warned of grave implications for the entire region.
Moreover, the investigators have accused the Syrian government of using chemical agents in eight separate incidents in western Syria this year.
The Islamic State (IS) is now in control of areas of Syria and is believed to be one of the groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad. Statistics reveal that at least 200,000 have died since the conflict began in early 2011.
The UN findings are the result of six months of interviews and evidence that have been collected between January and July this year as part of an inquiry into human rights violations inside Syria. The period coincides with the growth of the IS group in Syria, which seeks to create an independent Islamic State in an area that stretches across Syria and Iraq.
One of the investigators, Carla del Ponte, has urged world powers to refer Syria's war crimes to the International Criminal Court, calling it an important first step as it was in Rwanda and the Balkans.
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When will this violence stop

When I, a 70-year-old retired man open the newspaper in the morning or click on to a news site on the internet, I see news of violence everywhere - whether it is the Middle East or Africa or the Indian subcontinent news of violence occupies prime space and also, prime time of the visual mediums. And - these hurt. Why should there be so much blood all around us? We are a civilized lot -then, why should women be hounded out and captured by Islamic State militants in the town of Sinjar? As per a report in nzherald.co.nz they detained women, mostly the youngest and prettiest ones. This is what witnesses, relatives and in some instances the women themselves have revealed. It seems the women were separated from men, then the younger Yazidi women were separated from older ones and most were shunted off in buses or trucks. Once in their custody, the women were offered a bleak choice. The women belonged to the Christian faith and the choice was those who agreed to convert to Islam were promised a good comfortable life, with a house of their own and, of course, a Muslim husband. Those who would not agree to the terms would have to face a life of indefinite imprisonment - or, even, death. Is this an example of civilized life of the 21st century? Are women to be treated as readily available objects meant to satisfy and please the animal instincts of a section of the men?