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The Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff on Sunday defended the pace of the air war against Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists, warning that escalating bombing raids or sending in more American troops would be a mistake. During a visit to a French aircraft carrier in the Gulf taking part in the air campaign, General Martin Dempsey appealed for "strategic patience" in the fight against the ISIS group in Iraq and Syria, according to AFP. Expanding the air war could risk civilian casualties and play into the hands of ISIS propaganda, he said aboard the Charles de Gaulle....

Thirty-five Egyptian workers were rounded up by terrorists after the Egyptian airstrikes. The Libya Herald reported: There are reports that at least 35 Egyptians have been kidnapped in what appears to be a round-up at various locations in areas controlled by Ansar Al-Sharia and IS. The Libya Herald has been told that starting this morning, in the wake of the attack on Derna by warplanes from Egypt, Egyptian nationals, many of them it seems farm workers, have been picked up by gunmen. The first reports were that seven men had been seized, but by mid-afternoon, it was being said that...

President Sisi had vowed to ‘avenge the criminal killings’ after release of video purporting to show killing of 21 Christians, believed to be kidnapped Egyptians Egypt reported that its war planes had struck Isis targets in Libya, shortly after President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi vowed revenge for the release by Isis-affiliated militants of a video of a mass killing of Christians. A spokesman for the Armed Forces General Command announced the strikes on state radio Monday, marking the first time Cairo had publicly acknowledged taking military action in neighbouring Libya. The statement said the warplanes targeted weapons caches and training camps...

Jordanian fighter jets struck Islamic State targets for a third straight day Saturday, as the militants' claim that a Jordanian airstrike killed an American hostage remained unconfirmed. Jordan launched the raids to avenge the killing of a Jordanian pilot the Islamic State group captured in Syria in December. The United Arab Emirates said Saturday that it ordered a squadron of F-16 fighter planes to Jordan to help with the airstrikes. State news agency WAM carried the announcement. Both Jordan and the UAE are members of the U.S.-led coalition attacking the militants in their captured territory in Iraq and Syria. Coalition...

The United States and its allies carried out 29 separate airstrikes targeting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq on Friday, according to the Combined Joint Task Force. The strikes occurred between Friday and Saturday morning, and targeted a range of Islamic State vehicles, buildings, and other positions, according to Reuters. Sixteen of the attacks occurred in seven different Iraqi cities. Vehicles, buildings, equipment and fighting positions were targeted, as well as Islamic State units, according to the task force. In Syria, 11 more airstrikes were conducted around the city of Kobani. Those strikes destroyed a tank and other fighting...

American jets are pounding Syria. But ISIS is taking key terrain—and putting more and more people under its black banners. ISIS continues to gain substantial ground in Syria, despite nearly 800 airstrikes in the American-led campaign to break its grip there. At least one-third of the country’s territory is now under ISIS influence, with recent gains in rural areas that can serve as a conduit to major cities that the so-called Islamic State hopes to eventually claim as part of its caliphate. Meanwhile, the Islamic extremist group does not appear to have suffered any major ground losses since the strikes...

Children collect items from among the debris of a school for the deaf and mute, destroyed in what activists said were overnight U.S.-led air strikes against the Islamic State, in Raqqa November 24, 2014. Raqqa, in eastern Syria, is controlled by the Islamic State. The United States and its allies have conducted two dozen strikes against Islamic State militants since Friday, launching nine strikes in Syria and 15 strikes in Iraq, according to U.S. Central Command. At least 30 airstrikes carried out by the U.S.-led coalition have struck the city of Raqqa in Syria, in some of the heaviest attacks...

RAF jets equipped with guided bombs have taken part in a major coalition air assault on a secret Islamic State bunker and tunnel complex. The attack, supporting a Kurdish ground offensive, took place in the early hours of Wednesday morning in a rural area northwest of Kirkuk. Tornado GR4 planes armed with Paveway IV precision guided bombs were sent in after intelligence revealed a hidden network of fighting positions and underground facilities. Aircraft from seven countries were involved in what the Ministry of Defence called a "comprehensive and closely co-ordinated attack". France confirmed two of its Rafale jets had been...

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...