Taking credit for the success of the Kurds.
Via Times Of Israel
Kurdish fighters’ success in recapturing the key Syrian town of Kobani from Islamic State jihadists was a “big deal,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday.
Kerry, speaking during a trilateral meeting with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts in Boston, noted that the IS group has been “forced to acknowledge its own defeat.”
Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) meanwhile were engaged in sporadic battles with IS militants around Kobani as they sought to expand their control in the area.
YPG fighters now control 17 of the hundreds of villages in the Kobani region, with most of them taken since they recaptured the crucial town on the border with Turkey on Monday.
The US-led coalition targeting IS forces said it carried out more than 700 airstrikes since August 8 to help Kurdish fighters drive the militants from Kobani.
While the IS group has been expelled from Kobani, its forces remain scattered throughout the countryside around the town to the southeast and southwest.
“We have a long way to go in the overall campaign, but Daesh — ISIL as some know it — has said all along that Kobani was a real symbolic and strategic objective,” Kerry said, referring to the IS group.[…]
Over 60 vehicles and a dozen tanks, along with weapons systems and other equipment have also been destroyed.
“Kurdish ground forces, supported by our air component, were successful in retaking the town of Kobani, which again shows the emptiness of Daesh’s claims of invincibility,” said Lieutenant General James Terry, the task force’s commander.
“The coalition will continue to attack Daesh anywhere they present themselves.”