Turkey says ‘extensive’ fight against IS to start soon

The Prime Minister said the agreement with the U.S. on opening Turkish bases for allied jets fulfilled some of Turkey’s “concerns and expectations”.

The U.S. military’s training program has struggled from the start; many candidates have been declared ineligible, and some have dropped out. Even though al-Nusra is fiercely against ISIS forces, it still targets the U.S.-backed rebels who are apparently fighting the same enemy. Last month, the United States and Turkey announced a breakthrough by agreeing to work together in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria.

In sum, the formal partition of Syria is considered anathema nationally, regionally and internationally, and the de facto division of the country is therefore unlikely to exceed that of Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s. Davis said that for the first time, the US used strikes on Friday to defend rebels who were under attack from the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.

The Al Qaeda wing attacked a rebel compound near Azaz town in Syria on Friday, triggering the first US air strikes to support members of the new Syrian force. But according to these images, which were taken July 26, we now know that that equipment includes Turkish-made main battle tanks and support units poised in a defensive position on the Turkish side of the border.

Toner said the U.S. continues to seek a peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis that has claimed the lives of more than 211,000 victims and displaced millions. Gen Michael Nagata, but slowly.

“The people we are training and equipping are pledged to fight ISIL and only ISIL, so this is not something we view as inviting confrontation with Assad in any way”, he added. Here, the Syrian rebels have been trained in a covert program run by the Central Intelligence Agency and Jordanian intelligence.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers information from activists on the ground, said the explosions were followed by fierce gun-battles between the Islamic State and Syrian troops, near the airbase, also known as T4.

“(Kerry) welcomed Turkey’s recent decision to open its bases to US participation in air operations against (the Islamic State) and its support for Syrian refugees”, a senior State Department officials told reporters, in summarising the meeting. The two terror groups are rivals and take regular potshots at each other in social media.

“The aim of the consensus with the U.S.is to remove ISIS from that area in Syria”, the official said.

The U.S.is now flying combat missions over Iraq and Syria out of Qatar, Jordan and off aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.

In the meantime, a report by an unbiased monitoring group launched Monday stated U.S.-led airstrikes concentrating on ISIS have probably killed a minimum of 459 civilians over the previous yr.

The U.S. goal in Iraq, as in Syria, is to mobilize Sunni tribal forces, but this has been a slow roll.

For weeks, ISIL militants and Syrian forces have skirmished in the countryside to the east of Homs. Washington wants Syria’s Assad out as president.

But there remains a huge dividing factor between the US and Saudi Arabia on one side and Russian Federation and Iran on the other – what to do about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.