Militants shell border; Turks deploy tanks

Turkish tanks roll to take positions along the Turkey-Syria border near Suruc, Turkey, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014. U.S.-led coalition air raids targeted towns and villages in northern and eastern Syria controlled by the Islamic State group, including one strike that hit a grain silo and reportedly killed civilians, activists said Monday.(AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)
Turkish tanks roll to take positions along the Turkey-Syria border near Suruc, Turkey, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014. U.S.-led coalition air raids targeted towns and villages in northern and eastern Syria controlled by the Islamic State group, including one strike that hit a grain silo and reportedly killed civilians, activists said Monday.(AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

ANTAKYA, Turkey -- Militants of the Islamic State group were closing in Monday on a Kurdish area of Syria on the border with Turkey -- an advance unhindered so far by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, including one that struck a grain silo, killing two civilians, according to activists.

Islamic State fighters pounded the city of Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, with mortars and artillery shells, advancing within 3 miles of the Kurdish frontier city, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Nawaf Khalil, a Kurdish official. Meanwhile, Turkey began deploying tanks along the border.

The Syrian opposition reported that militants, now within a few miles of Kobani, unleashed fresh shelling on the town, which is being defended by a Kurdish Syrian militia force. The secular Kurdish forces defending Kobani say they are outgunned by the heavily armed Islamist militants.

One of the mortar shells fired by the Islamic State hit near the border crossing of Mursitpinar, close to a group of journalists and Turkish security forces, CNN-Turk said. Another shell landed near a refugee camp, about a half a mile inside Turkey. Regular explosions and gunfire could be heard from Turkish territory as Turkish troops returned fire, state-run Anadolu Agency said.

The Islamic extremists intensified their shelling of the border region after U.S.-led strikes Saturday. The aerial assault appeared to have done little to thwart the militants, Kurdish officials and activists said, adding that if anything, the extremists seemed more determined to seize the area, which would deepen their control over territory stretching from the Turkish border, across Syria and to the western edge of Baghdad.

"Instead of pushing them back, now every time they hear the planes, they shell more," Ahmad Sheikho, an activist operating along the Syria-Turkey border, said of the Islamic State fighters. He estimated he heard a rocket explosion every 15 minutes or so.

Three mortar shells landed in a field in nearby Turkey, the Turkish military said in a statement. After the strike, Turkey's military moved tanks away from the army post in the area, positioning them on a hill overlooking the border.

The push by Islamic State fighters caused thousands more Kurds to flee the Kobani area Monday, adding to some 150,000 refugees who have fled to Turkey since mid-September, one of the largest influxes of Syrian refugees since the war began 3½ years ago.

Washington and its Arab allies opened the air assault against the extremist group last Tuesday, striking military facilities, training camps, heavy weapons and oil installations. The campaign expands upon the airstrikes the United States has been conducting against the militants in Iraq since early August.

The airstrikes ultimately are meant to destroy the group, which has declared a self-styled caliphate ruled by its harsh interpretation of Islamic law in areas under its control. Its brutal tactics, which include mass killings and beheadings, have galvanized the international community to take on the militants.

Civilian casualties

On Monday, the U.S.-led coalition carried out eight airstrikes targeting towns and villages in northern and eastern Syria controlled by the militants.

One strike hit a grain silo in the northern town of Manbij, setting it ablaze and killing two civilians working there, said the Observatory's director, Rami Abdurrahman.

"There was no ISIS inside," Abdurrahman said, using an alternative name for the Islamic State group. The airstrikes, he said, "destroyed the food that was stored there."

The U.S. Central Command said the silo was used by the militants "as a logistics hub and vehicle staging facility."

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said the U.S was investigating reports that civilians were killed in the strike, but had found nothing so far to corroborate the allegation. He acknowledged, however, that because of limitations of Pentagon intelligence in Syria, the U.S. could not be certain that every casualty of the coalition airstrikes was a combatant.

Another strike overnight hit the entrance of Syria's largest gas plant in the eastern Deir el-Zour province, but did not damage the facility itself, the Observatory said. U.S. Central Command said the strikes in Deir al-Zour hit two military vehicles.

More raids Monday morning struck the town of Tel Abyad on the Syria-Turkey border, according to a resident on the Turkish side of the frontier.

Mehmet Ozer, who witnessed the airstrikes from the Turkish side of the border, said the raids hit an abandoned military base and an empty school, sending smoke and dust into the air. He said militants evacuated the base about three months ago.

"They [the coalition] must not have fresh intelligence," Ozer said.

U.S. Central Command said the strikes targeted a compound and an airfield used by the Islamic State group.

The two purported civilian casualties in Manbij would add to the 19 civilians the Observatory says have already been killed in the coalition airstrikes.

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch said it had confirmed the deaths of at least seven civilians -- two women and five children -- from apparent U.S. missile strikes last Tuesday in the village of Kafr Derian in northeast Syria. The New York-based group said two men were also killed in the strikes, but they may have been militants.

The U.S.-led coalition includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan. Several European countries also are contributing to U.S. efforts to strike the Islamic State group in Iraq, including France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Britain.

Turkey also has signaled it's ready to join the coalition assembled by the U.S. to fight Islamic State, reversing an earlier reluctance to get involved in the conflict. Turkey "can't stay out" of the campaign, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday.

Iraqi targets hit

The coalition also to aim at three targets in Iraq. Two of the strikes destroyed four militant vehicles. The third strike in northwest Iraq targeting an extremist vehicle "was unsuccessful," the Pentagon said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Monday that the country does not require foreign troops to enter Iraq to assist in the fight against the Islamic State.

"We don't need [coalition] troops" on the ground in Iraq, Abadi said at a news conference in Baghdad. The Iraqi army is strong enough to battle the Islamic State, he said.

His comments came as Iraqi troops and Sunni tribesmen repelled the second assault in two days by Islamic State forces on the town of Amiriyah al-Fallujah, 25 miles west of Baghdad. The jihadists attacked early in the morning Monday, and the ensuing gun battle lasted about five hours, said the police chief of Anbar province, where Amiriyah al-Fallujah is located.

The militants also launched an assault Sunday, and coalition airstrikes in the area were said to have forced them to retreat.

"But we expect another attack soon," said Ahmed Saddak al-Dulaimi, the police chief.

Elsewhere, Syria's foreign minister said Monday that his government is satisfied with the U.S.-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State, adding that the airstrikes should be expanded to include all other militant groups in Syria.

In an interview, Walid al-Moallem said the fight against terrorism has aligned Damascus with Western and Arab opponents in fighting the same enemy.

Al-Moallem said the U.S. does not inform Syria of every strike before it happens, "but it's OK."

"We are fighting ISIS, they are fighting ISIS," he said.

Some of the initial strikes targeted the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's Syria affiliate, hitting several of its facilities and killing dozens of its fighters. Washington said it was trying to take out an al-Qaida cell known as the Khorasan Group that was actively plotting attacks against Americans and Western interests.

Al-Moallem said he considered the Islamic State group, the Nusra Front and all Islamist groups fighting in Syria to be essentially on the same side and should all be hit.

"Without doubt, because they have the same ideology. They have the same extremist ideology," he said.

And in the United States, a spokesman for a Republican congressman from Colorado said the lawmaker was not trying to undermine President Barack Obama's military actions in the Middle East by urging generals who disagreed with the president to resign "in a blaze of glory."

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn made the remarks last week in response to a question at a small gathering in Colorado Springs.

"A lot of us are talking to the generals behind the scenes, saying, 'Hey, if you disagree with the policy the White House has given you, let's have a resignation,'" Lamborn said. "You know, let's have a public resignation, and state your protest, and go out in a blaze of glory."

Jarred Rego, the spokesman, said the remarks had been misinterpreted. He said the congressman was referencing prior occasions, such as the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" policy or budget cuts, "where generals and admirals approached members of Congress and expressed serious disagreement."

Information for this article was contributed by Desmond Butler, Diaa Hadid, Mohammed Rasool, Ryan Lucas, Suzan Fraser, Ken Dilanian, Zeina Karam, Edith M. Lederer and Nicholas Riccardi of The Associated Press; by Onur Ant and Selcan Hacaoglu of Bloomberg News; by Patrick J. McDonnell of the Los Angeles Times; and by Rebecca Collard and Erin Cunningham of The Washington Post.

A Section on 09/30/2014

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