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 U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking at the United Nations, asked
the world to join together to fight the militants and vowed to keep
up military pressure against them.
"The only language understood by killers like this is the language
of force, so the United States of America will work with a broad
coalition to dismantle this network of death," Obama said in
40-minute speech to the U.N. General Assembly.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said he wanted Britain to join
U.S.-led air strikes against the Islamic State militant group after
the Iraqi government requested London's help. He recalled parliament
to secure its approval for military action.
Cameron said in an address at the United Nations that a
comprehensive strategy was needed to combat Islamic State.
"Our strategy must work in tandem with Arab states, always in
support of local people, in line with our legal obligations and as
part of a plan that involves our aid, our diplomacy and, yes, our
military," Cameron said. "We need to act and we need to act now."
A third night of U.S.-led air strikes late on Wednesday targeted
Islamic State-controlled oil refineries in eastern Syria as the
United States and its partners moved to choke off a crucial source
of revenue for the militant group, U.S. officials said.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined in the strikes by
piloted and drone aircraft targeting facilities around al Mayadin,
al Hasakah, and Abu Kamal, the U.S. military said.
The military said the targeted refineries, which are prefabricated
and constructed off-site so they can be transported and made
operational quickly, were capable of producing millions in revenue
and provided fuel for Islamic State operations.
The United States on Wednesday also designated two dozen individuals
and groups as foreign terrorists or terrorist facilitators, enabling
it to freeze assets and block financial transactions as part of its
offensive against Islamic State.
Syrian Kurds said Islamic State had responded to U.S. attacks by
intensifying its assault near the Turkish border in northern Syria,
where 140,000 civilians have fled in recent days in the fastest
exodus of the three-year civil war.
Washington and its Arab allies killed scores of Islamic State
fighters in the opening 24 hours of air strikes, the first direct
U.S. foray into Syria two weeks after Obama pledged to hit the group
on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border.
But the intensifying advance on the northern town of Kobani showed
the difficulty Washington faces in defeating Islamist fighters in
Syria, where it lacks strong military allies on the ground.
"Those air strikes are not important. We need soldiers on the
ground," said Hamed, a refugee who fled into Turkey from the Islamic
State advance.
Mazlum Bergaden, a teacher from Kobani who crossed the border on
Wednesday with his family, said two of his brothers had been taken
captive by Islamic State fighters.
"The situation is very bad. After they kill people, they are burning
the villages. ... When they capture any village, they behead one
person to make everyone else afraid," he said. "They are trying to
eradicate our culture, purge our nation."
FRENCH HOSTAGE KILLED
Islamist militants in Algeria boasted in a video they had beheaded a
French hostage captured on Sunday to punish Paris for joining air
strikes against Islamic State in Iraq. French President Francois
Hollande confirmed the execution.
"My determination is total and this aggression only strengthens it,"
Hollande said. "The military air strikes will continue as long as
necessary."
The United States said it was still assessing whether Mohsin
al-Fadhli, a senior figure in the al Qaeda-linked group Khorasan,
had been killed in a U.S. strike in Syria.
A U.S. official earlier said Fadhli, an associate of al Qaeda
founder Osama bin Laden, was thought to have been killed in the
first day of strikes on Syria. The Pentagon said any confirmation
could take time.
Washington describes Khorasan as a separate group from Islamic
State, made up of al Qaeda veterans planning attacks on the West
from a base in Syria.
As Obama tried in meetings in New York to widen his coalition,
Belgium said it was likely to contribute warplanes in the coming
days, and the Netherlands said it would deploy six F-16s to support
U.S.-led strikes.
The initial days of U.S. strikes suggest one aim is to hamper
Islamic State's ability to operate across the Iraqi-Syrian frontier.
On Wednesday U.S.-led forces hit at least 13 targets in and around
Albu Kamal, one of the main border crossings between Iraq and Syria,
after striking 22 targets there on Tuesday, said the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, a body which monitors the conflict in
Syria.
The U.S. military confirmed it had struck inside Syria northwest of
al Qaim, the Iraqi town at the Albu Kamal border crossing. It also
struck inside Iraq west of Baghdad and near the Iraqi Kurdish
capital Arbil on Wednesday.
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An Islamist fighter in the Albu Kamal area reached by phone said
there had been at least nine strikes on Wednesday by "crusader
forces." Targets included an industrial area.
Perched on the main Euphrates valley highway, Albu Kamal controls
the route from Islamic State's de facto capital, Raqqa, in Syria to
the front lines in western Iraq and down the Euphrates to the
western and southern outskirts of Baghdad. Islamic State's ability
to move fighters and weapons between Syria and Iraq has provided an
important tactical advantage for the group in both countries:
fighters sweeping in from Syria helped capture much of northern Iraq
in June, and weapons they seized and sent back to Syria helped them
in battle there.
France, which has confined its air strikes to Iraq, said it would
stay the course despite the killing of hostage Herve Gourdel, 55, a
mountain guide captured on vacation in Algeria on Sunday by a group
claiming loyalty to Islamic State.
In a video released by the Caliphate Soldiers group entitled "a
message of blood to the French government", gunmen paraded Gourdel's
severed head after making him kneel, pushing him on his side and
holding him down.
DAMASCUS: CAMPAIGN GOES 'IN RIGHT DIRECTION'
The campaign has blurred the traditional lines of Middle East
alliances, pitting a U.S. coalition comprising countries opposed to
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against fighters that form the most
powerful opposition to Assad on the ground.
The attacks have so far encountered no objection, and even signs of
approval, from Assad's Syrian government. Syrian state TV led its
news broadcast with Wednesday's air strikes on the border with Iraq,
saying "the USA and its partners" had launched raids against "the
terrorist organisation Islamic State."
U.S. officials say they informed both Assad and his main ally Iran
in advance of their intention to strike but did not coordinate with
them.
Jordan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia
have joined in the strikes. All are ruled by Sunni Muslims and are
staunch opponents of Assad, a member of a Shi'ite-derived sect, and
his main regional ally, Shi'ite Iran.
But some of Assad's opponents fear the Syrian leader could exploit
the U.S. military campaign to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of
Western countries, and that strikes against Islamic State could
solidify his grip on power.
ISLAMIC STATE ADVANCES ON KURDS
Even as Islamic State outposts elsewhere have been struck, the
fighters have accelerated their campaign to capture Kobani, a
Kurdish city on the border with Turkey. Nearly 140,000 Syrian Kurds
have fled into Turkey since last week, the fastest exodus of the
entire three-year civil war.
An Islamic State source, speaking to Reuters via online messaging,
said the group had taken several villages to the west of Kobani.
Footage posted on YouTube appeared to show Islamic State fighters
using weapons including artillery as they battled Kurdish forces
near Kobani. The Islamists were shown raising the group's black flag
after tearing down a Kurdish one.
A Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the
advance had been rapid three days ago but was slowed by the U.S.-led
air strikes.
But Ocalan Iso, deputy leader of Kurdish forces defending Kobani,
said more militants and tanks had arrived in the area since the
coalition began air strikes on the group.
(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed, Steve Holland, Michelle
Nichols and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations, Phil Stewart
and David Alexander in Washington, Patrick Markey in Tunis, Tom
Perry, Sylvia Westall, Mariam Karouny, Laila Bassam, Alexander
Dziadosz in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Anthony Deutsch in
The Hague; Writing by Peter Graff and Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by
David Stamp, Chizu Nomiyama and Ken Wills)
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