ISIL fast reaching Turkey border despite US airstrikes

The terrorist ISIL group has made advances on areas near the Syrian border with Turkey, despite airstrikes against the Takfiri militants by a US-led coalition.

News ID: 60222

Date: 01 October 2014 - 11:00

According to reports late on Tuesday, the Takfiri terrorists have come within two kilometers of the major Syrian border town of Ain al-Arab situated in the northern province of Aleppo. The town is also known as Kobani to the Kurds.

The Takfiri ISIL terrorists have had the strategic Syrian town under siege during the past several days.

The recent advances have brought the Takfiri group to the closest distance from the besieged town.

There are also reports that the Takfiris have surrounded the tomb of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, Osman the First. The militants have taken hostage 20 Turkish soldiers who were guarding the tomb, which lies to the east of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo near the Turkish border.

Ankara regards the tomb of Suleyman Shah as sovereign Turkish territory under a treaty signed with France in 1921.

The ISIL has captured nearly 60 Kurdish villages around the city of Kobani in Aleppo’s countryside, located in northwestern Syria.

The ISIL advances come despite the US-led airstrikes on the group’s positions in Syria.

Since September 22, the US and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan, have been conducting airstrikes against the ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

The airstrikes are an extension of the US-led aerial campaign against ISIL positions in Iraq.

This is while Washington has been supporting the militants operating against the government in Syria since March 2011. Many ISIL terrorists have reportedly received training by the CIA in Jordan and Turkey. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been also staunch supporters of militants fighting the Syrian government.

Source: PressTV