US forces carry out airstrikes against ISIS targets
20 Oct 2014
US forces carried out airstrikes against ISIS targets, last evening as C-130 cargo planes made multiple arms drops for Kurdish forces fighting in the besieged city of Kobane, Mail Online reported.
Medical equipment that had been provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq was also airdropped.
According to US secretary of state John Kerry the decision to carry out the airdrops was made as it would be 'irresponsible' and 'morally very difficult' not to support the Kurdish fighters.
Meanwhile, Turkey finally allowed ethnic Kurds living in the country to travel over the border into Syria to help at Kobane.
According to commentators the US weapon drops might have been strategically timed to arm potentially hundreds of additional Kurdish fighters in the city.
Speaking in Indonesia today, Kerry told reporters that the administration understood ally Turkey's concerns about supplying the Kurds, who were linked to a Kurdish group that Ankara fiercely opposed.
However, he said that the situation was such in the besieged town of Kobani that the resupplies were deemed absolutely necessary in a 'crisis moment'.
"Let me say very respectfully to our allies the Turks that we understand fully the fundamentals of their opposition and ours to any kind of terrorist group and particularly obviously the challenges they face with respect to the PKK," Kerry said.
With the aid of air strikes from a US-led coalition, the Kurds had been looking to push Isis, out of the town, The Independent reported.
The group had reached the border region, taking control of large swathes of both Syria and Iraq in recent months and declaring its own ''caliphate''.
The air strikes had intensified in recent days as the coalition of nations looked, in president Barack Obama's words, ''to degrade and destroy'' the militant group.
According to US Central Command, 13 strikes were conducted over Syria on Saturday and yesterday with the aid of fighter planes from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Further 10 strikes were carried out in Iraq, many of them in Anbar province, an area where ISIS had gained much territory in recent weeks.
