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Reports suggest that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) chief and caliph of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed in an air raid by the US-led coalition which hit a ten-truck -convoy of the ISIS, outside Mosul on Friday, November 7. According to reports Baghdadi was ‘critically wounded’ in the American-led air strike that targeted the western Iraqi border town of al-Qaim. AFP had reported that US authorities confirmed that air strikes targeted ISIS leaders near their northern Iraqi hub of Mosul late Friday, without any confirmation of Baghdadi’s death. According to some other sources, there...

THE leadership of the Islamic State death cult has been decimated after a series of targeted US-led air strikes, which reportedly left leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with “critical” injuries. The 43-year-old “caliph” — last week named on the Forbes most powerful list — was “critically wounded”, according to the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news ­agency. US officials confirmed a convoy of 10 armed trucks had been struck near Mosul and other IS units had been targeted but could not verify whether al-Baghdadi had been injured during the Friday night strikes. The US State Department’s $10 million reward for information on al-Baghdadi, also...

While US authorities noted the airstrikes on a 10-vehicle convoy near Mosul, they could not confirm the identity of those killed. *U.S. SAYS COALITION AIRCRAFT STRIKE IS LEADERS NEAR MOSUL: AFP *U.S. OFFICIAL CONFIRMS AIRSTRIKES TARGETED IS LEADERS:REUTERS *U.S. SAYS IT DESTROYED CONVOY OF 10 ISIS ARMED TRUCKS *CONVOY ATTACK WAS LAST NIGHT IN IRAQ NEAR MOSUL *U.S. SAYS ATTACK WAS AT SITE OF GATHERING OF ISIS LEADERS *U.S. CAN'T CONFIRM IF ISIS LEADER ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI THERE *U.S. SAYS IT HAS NO MORE INFORMATION RIGHT NOW ON AIRSTRIKES

Fighter jets from the US led coalition have destroyed a moving Islamic State (Isis) convoy near Mosul in northern Iraq. Iraqi officials said a number of top militants had been killed. A US defence official was however unable to confirm reports that the group’s top commander, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was among the 50 casualties in the ten vehicles targeted or even whether he was present. Baghdadi made a rare public appearance at a mosque in Mosul in July. Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesman at US Central Command, said “I can confirm that coalition aircraft did conduct a series of air...

Members of the Iraqi army have torn down the sinister black flag of the Islamic State in Jurf al-Sakhr after forcing the terror group out of the strategically important city. Soldiers removed the extremist group's emblem from a tower and replaced it with the Iraqi national flag in a symbolic gesture that came after days of heavy fighting. The jihadis were forced to retreat from Jurf al-Sakhr and reassemble in the city's suburbs, with the group's leaders confirming a large number of militant deaths at the hands of the regime troops, but urging its fighters to remain in the area...

U.S. airstrikes have killed 521 militants and 32 civilians since they began a month ago, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The SOHR said 464 of those militants are part of the Islamic State group, who the U.S. is actively targeting in Syria. The other 57 are part of Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. The 32 civilians include six children and five women.The observatory group believes casualties amongst Islamic State group ranks are higher, but those figures cannot be confirmed because of “the extreme secrecy” the Islamist group maintains over casualties and the difficulty reaching areas...

Iraqi and Peshmerga forces have reportedly wrested key areas of northern and southern Iraq from Isis (Islamic State) militants following 22 US-led air strikes. Kurdish forces said on Saturday that they recaptured several towns and villages held by Isis in the north, while Iraqi government forces said they reclaimed the town of Jurf al-Sakhr, 50km south of Baghdad. The US Central Command said the Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces were backed by several air strikes by US-led forces on Friday and Saturday. The air strikes targeted Isis forces in Mosul in the north, Fallujah in the western Anbar province, and...

Kurdish forces retook the northern Iraqi town of Zumar and several nearby villages from Islamic State early on Saturday after heavy coalition air strikes against the Islamist insurgents, security sources said. A Kurdish intelligence officer in Zumar said peshmerga forces had advanced from five directions in the early morning and encountered fierce resistance, but ultimately prevailed. A spokesman for the peshmerga ministry also said Zumar was now in Kurdish hands. Zumar was one of the first Kurdish-controlled towns to be overrun in August by Islamic State militants who went on to threaten the autonomous region's capital, prompting air strikes by...

The U.S. military said late Sunday that it had dropped weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies to Kurdish forces battling to hold the Syrian border town of Kobani against Islamic State militants. The airdrops were the first of their kind and followed weeks of U.S. and coalition airstrikes in and near Kobani. Earlier Sunday, U.S. Central Command said that it had launched 11 airstrikes overnight in the area. CentCom said U.S. C-130 cargo planes made multiple drops of arms and supplies provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq. It said they were intended to enable continued resistance to Islamic State efforts to...

American fighter jets take off from abroad this aircraft carrier everyday to bomb the positions of the Islamic State (IS) in the Kurdistan Region and Rojava. Video at source...

Kurdish forces in Kobane repulse new attempt by Daesh Five new US-led strikes around Kobane overnight By AFP Published Saturday, October 18, 2014 Kurdish forces in the Syrian town of Kobane repulsed a new attempt by ‘Daesh’ fighters to cut off the border with Turkey on Saturday as troops battled the militants in neighbouring Iraq.A Kurdish official reported five new US-led strikes around Kobane overnight as the coalition kept up its air support for the town's defenders.But the US military said that while it saw some "encouraging" signs, the strikes might not prevent Kobane's fall and its priority remained...

“YPG fighters are now searching the homes for bombs and explosives that the Islamist militants might have left behind,” Photo: AFP KOBANE—Islamist militants have been pushed out of Kobane and fighters of the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) are now in control of the town, a Kurdish official in Kobane told Rudaw. “There is no ISIS in Kobane now,” said Omar Alush, co-chair of the TEV-DEM movement in Kobane. Alush said that following the recent air strikes on positions of the Islamic State (IS) militants in Kobane, the YPG managed to drive the rest of the jihadis out of town...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Dusty and remote, the Syrian city of Kobani has become an unlikely spoil in the war against Islamic State militants - and far more of a strategic prize than the United States wants to admit. Perched on Turkey's border, the city of about 60,000 has been besieged for weeks by IS fighters. Kobani is now a ghost town: the U.N. estimates that fewer than 700 of its residents remain as its people flee to safety in Turkey. The Obama administration has declared Kobani a humanitarian disaster, but not a factor in the overall strategy to defeat the...

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department has come up with a name for the American military strikes against the Islamic State: Operation Inherent Resolve. For two months, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon’s press secretary, has been batting down queries from reporters about the refusal to name the operation. After all, the reasoning went, the military loves naming operations: Desert Shield (Kuwait); Desert Storm (Iraq, the first time); Iraqi Freedom (Iraq, the second time). So at long last, there is now a name for Iraq (the third time) and Syria, announced on Wednesday by the United States Central Command in a...

The Islamic State (IS) militant group has been driven out of most of the northern Syrian town of Kobane, a Kurdish commander has told the BBC. Baharin Kandal said IS fighters had retreated from all areas, except for two pockets of resistance in the east. US-led air strikes have helped push back the militants, with another 14 conducted over the past 24 hours. ... Speaking by phone, Kurdish commander Baharin Kandal told the BBC's Kasra Naji that she hoped the city would be "liberated soon". Ms Kandal said her militia group had been receiving arms, supplies and fighters but she...

Washington (AFP) - US-led air strikes on a Syrian border town killed "several hundred" Islamic State fighters but it may still fall, officials warned Wednesday, acknowledging significant jihadist gains in Iraq and Syria. While Iraqi troops prevented the jihadists from seizing a lynchpin provincial capital near Baghdad, a senior US envoy admitted IS forces have scored important advances in Iraq, John Allen, a retired four-star general and US envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, said it would take time to build up local forces to defeat them there and in Syria. In the border town of Kobane, Kurdish...

Kurdish fighters have launched an unlikely comeback against Islamic State terrorists besieging the Syrian town of Kobane, amid claims the resistance forces have now reclaimed swathes of the city. Images this morning showed Kurdish YPG soldiers triumphantly raising their flag above Tel Shair hill in the west of the city, where ISIS' own black jihadist flag had recently been flying. Assisted by sustained U.S. and Arab airstrikes, the massively outgunned Kurdish troops have managed to do what looking impossible only a week ago - force ISIS to abandon strategic locations in the west of Kobane and pin them back elsewhere...

U.S.-led air strikes killed at least 32 ISIS fighters in direct hits in Kobani this week because of closer coordination with Kurdish forces on the ground, activists said, after bombing of the Syrian town intensified. Kurdish officials said the main Kurdish armed group, the YPG, was giving the coordinates of ISIS fighters in Kobani to the U.S.-led alliance that is bombing the group in both Iraq and Syria. "The senior people in YPG tell the coalition the location of ISIL (ISIS) targets and they hit accordingly," Polat Can, a YPG spokesman, told Reuters, using an acronym for ISIS "Some of...

Kurdish fighters have retaken control of a strategic hilltop overlooking the town of Kobani near the border with Turkey. News of the advance emerged after activists confirmed the US-led coalition had launched several air strikes on positions of Islamic State group militants in northern and eastern Syria. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees say some of the air strikes targeted the eastern town of Mayadeen. The Observatory said the bombardment hit oil refineries near Mayadeen, sparking a huge fire. Idriss Nassan, a local Kurdish official from Kobani, added that intense air strikes had hit...

Kurdish fighters have gained ground in their defence of the besieged town of Kobane against Islamic State jihadists, a senior Kurdish official says. Idris Nassan, deputy foreign affairs minister in the Kobane administration, said that, following fierce clashes overnight, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) managed to advance into a commercial zone northeast of the city. He added that the Kurdish fighters were also able to advance into an area southwest of Kobane "where they managed to push away Islamic State fighters from the area". The YPG claimed its forces had killed 138 jihadists in the last 48 hours in...