LATEST: Video — Aftermath of Regime Airstrike on Damascus Suburb of Douma
UPDATE 1010 GMT: Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has confirmed that Ankara will assist Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces with passage and border crossing to defend Kobane in northern Syria.
“We never wanted Kobane to fall,” Çavuşoğlu said at a joint press conference on Monday with his Tunisian counterpart.
UPDATE 0830 GMT: The Kurdish website Rudaw, citing a “well-placed official source”, says the Turkish government has agreed to allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters passage to the besieged town of Kobane in northern Syria.
The source said that Ankara responded positively to a request from Iraqi Kurdish President Massoud Barzani to allow peshmerga forces to transit through Turkey to relieve Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters in the six-week battle in and near Kobane.
Barzani and Peshmerga Minister Mustafa Sayid Qader coordinated the plan with Salih Muslim, leader of the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) and his YPG commanders.
Muslim met with the Iraqi Kurdish leaders in Dohuk in northern Iraq last week.
The US has supplied its first weapons to Syria’s Kurdish forces, airdropping them to fighters defending the town of Kobane against the Islamic State.
Washington proceeded despite the stern objection of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who declared on Sunday that the Syrian Kurdish party PYD was a “terrorist organization”, just like its Turkish counterpart PKK.
US Central Command said C-130 cargo planes dropped 27 bundles of arms, ammunition, and medical supplies, provided by Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Command also reported 11 airstrikes early Sunday in and around Kobane.
“Combined with continued resistance to ISIL on the ground, indications are that these strikes have slowed ISIL advances into the city, killed hundreds of their fighters, and destroyed or damaged scores of pieces of ISIL combat equipment and fighting positions,” the Command declared.
The US airdrops follow the first-ever American meeting with the PYD: Daniel Rubinstein, the State Department’s envoy for Syria, held discussions in Paris with the organization earlier this month.
“Senior Administrations” officials said President Obama informed Erdoğan of the planned airdrop by phone on Saturday.
“We have made clear to the Turkish government for some days now the urgency of facilitating resupply to those forces,” said one senior official, noting that Obama had conveyed to Erdoğan “the importance we put on it”.
Inside Kobane, Kurdish official Idris Nassen said fighters held frontlines against the Islamic State’s renewed assault.
[Islamic State] brought in reinforcements…and attacked hard. But thanks to air strikes and the response, they did not make any progress.
Video: Aftermath of Regime Airstrike on Damascus Suburb of Douma
Men look to rescue wounded amid the destruction of a regime airstrike on the Damascus suburb of Douma:
The Syrian military has been carrying out a regular bombardment of Douma and nearby areas as it tries to clear insurgents from northeast of the capital.
Picture: Mass Wedding in Tartous for Members of Syrian Military
A photo of the mass wedding of 36 military-affiliated men, including soldiers injured in war and the brothers of soldiers killed in combat, in Tartous on the Mediterranean coast:
A pro-regime charity supported the wedding, declaring, “The goal of the event is to send a message that Syria is immune to its enemies.”
The grooms, many of them on crutches, wore their military uniforms. One bride chose an Army-print output rather than the traditional white dress; another wore a dress resembling the Syrian national flag.
(Hat tip to Syria Direct)
