Two days ago, US President Barack Obama had a meeting with military commanders from over 20 nations to discuss how to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters. The US-led airstrikes have keenly intensified in Iraq after the jihadists have gained more ground.
According to a CBS News report by correspondent Holly Williams, ISIS insurgents are gaining more grounds in Iraq and Syria despite the continuing airstrikes orchestrated by America and other allied nations. The militants have seized an Iraqi army camp in Hit, west of Baghdad, as the vicious terrorists emerged close to total capture of Iraq's Anbar Province.
Despite the intensified US airstrikes aimed at pushing back the ISIS extremists, the soldiers of the Iraqi government were forced to pull out. As stated by Fox News, the jihadists are now on the verge of victory in Syria's Kobani and with reported control of at least 80 percent of Sunni-centric Anbar Province, the numbers may even rise more intensely. Additionally, Baghdad's International Airport is also under threat.
ISIS is now using suicide bombers to gain advances on taking control of more grounds. They now control a swath of territory connecting Iraq to the Syrian-Turkish border, where Turkish tanks and forces are formed, however until now not intervened.
On Sunday, US officials said that Turkey had agreed to allow airstrikes against ISIS to be launched from Turkish territory. But on Oct. 13, the government of Turkey contradicted the statement of the US officials and said that there was no deal. The US-led airstrikes are actually reinforcing the Syrian regime, as claimed by the Turkish government leaders and in return for Turkey's support in the coalition against ISIS; they wanted the US to set up a no-fly zone in northern Syria.
Meanwhile, the coalition had orchestrated 21 airstrikes on the militants near the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani over Monday and Tuesday and seemed to have slowed the ISIS' advances there however; the US forces warned the situation remained active.
According to New York Post, US President Barack Obama aired profound concern about the situation in Kobani and in Iraq's Anbar province on Tuesday, which the US troops struggled to protect during the Iraq war. The region is currently at risk of being seized by the ISIS.
As said by the White House, the fight against ISIS will be among the items to be discussed when Obama held a video conference Wednesday with Italian, French, German and British leaders. War against militants in Syria was threatened to undo a delicate peace in neighboring Turkey where Kurds were furious with Ankara over its repudiation to help protect their people in Syria.
The resulting unrest is a new source of chaos in a region consumed by Iraqi and Syrian civil wars and a global campaign against the ISIS. The unrest shows the difficulty Turkey has had in designing a Syria policy. Turkey has already taken in 1.2 million refugees from Syria's three-year civil war, including 200,000 Kurds who fled the area around Kobani in recent weeks.
In line with President Obama's meeting, he, who had ordered the airstrikes campaign that started in August against the ISIS rebels, told the military leaders from 22 nations to expect a long-term effort in the fight against the extremists.
After the discussion, a US military said there was an acknowledgement that ISIS was making some gains on the ground in Iraq and Syria, in spite of the intensified airstrikes. However, there was also a sense that the coalition, when working in unity would ultimately prevail.
The US-led coalition has been launching out airstrikes against ISIS targets in and around Iraq and Syria for weeks, and the region's fate has arose as a major test of whether the aerial assaults campaign can truly reel back the extremists.
