Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Islamic State said to be test-flying captured jets
BEIRUT — The Islamic State group is test-flying, with the help of former Iraqi air force pilots, several fighter jets captured earlier from air bases belonging to the Syrian military, a Syrian activist group said Friday.
The report by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights could not be independently confirmed, and U.S. officials said they had no reports of the militants flying jets.
In Iraq, the Islamic State pressed its offensive on the city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad. The militants appeared to be taking advantage of the focus of U.S.-led airstrikes on the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, along the border with Turkey, to concentrate on their second front in Iraq.
The Observatory said the planes, seen flying over the Jarrah air base in the countryside of Aleppo province in eastern Syria this week, are believed to be MiG-21 and MiG-23 jets. Rami Abdurrahman, director of the Observatory, said the planes have been flying at a low altitude, “apparently to avoid being detected by Syrian military radar in the area.”
He described the flights as a “moral victory” for the Islamic State, saying that “the jets could not fly much further without being knocked down by the [international] coalition.”
The U.S. and its allies are bombing the group’s bases in Syria and Iraq, where the extremists have seized large swaths of territory.
During its blitz, the Islamic State group is known to have seized fighter jets from at least one air base it captured from the Syrian army in the eastern Raqqa province earlier this year. Militant websites had posted pictures of Islamic State fighters posing next to the fighter jets, but it was unclear whether they were operational.
Abdurrahman said Islamic State members were being trained by Iraqi officers who had joined the group and who were once pilots under Saddam Hussein.
In January, Islamic State militants also captured the Jarrah air base in Syria after clashes with rival extremists and Syrian rebel groups. A mix of several Islamic rebel groups battling Syrian President Bashar Assad — including al-Qaida’s Syrian branch, the Nusra Front — had seized the base from government troops in early 2013.
Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, said he has no operational reports of the militants flying jets in support of their forces on the ground.
Austin, the head of U.S. Central Command who is directing the fight in Iraq and Syria, said he also has no information about Iraqi pilots defecting to the Islamic State.
However, an Iraqi intelligence official said the government in Baghdad is aware of several ex-Iraqi military officers going to Syria to train militants with the group.
The militants acquired war planes from al-Tabaqa air base in Syria but did not get any when they toppled the Iraqi military in Mosul, the official said on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to talk to media.
Meanwhile, clashes between Syrian Kurdish fighters and Islamic State militants continued Friday in the town of Kobani, along the Syrian-Turkish border.
The Kurdish fighters have begun sharing information with the U.S.-led coalition to coordinate strikes against Islamic State militants there, a Kurdish official said.
The party’s armed wing, known as the People’s Protection Units, has been struggling to defend the town against the Islamic State militants, despite dozens of U.S.-led airstrikes against the extremists.
Kurdish fighters provided “correct and credible intelligence” early on, building trust with the U.S.-led coalition, said Nawaf Khalil, spokesman for the Kurdish Democratic Union Party. There was no immediate comment from U.S. military officials.
Turkey has ground forces and tanks deployed just across the border but has declined to intervene. It views the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units as an extension of the PKK, which has waged a long and bloody insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by the United States and NATO
Austin said Friday that fighting over Kobani has allowed the U.S.-led coalition to take out large numbers of Islamic State group fighters that have been pouring in to try and take over the community
He said the militants have clearly decided to make the capture of Kobani their main effort, and the more insurgents are taken off the battlefield there, the fewer there will be to fight elsewhere.
Austin also cautioned Friday against expecting quick progress against the extremists in Iraq.
He said he believes the Iraqi government will successfully enlist the support of Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province to turn the tide in that important region, where the militants have made recent gains.
And he said he sees no imminent threat to the international airport west of Baghdad, where U.S. Apache helicopters are monitoring the group’s efforts to make inroads on the capital.
Iraq imposed a curfew in Ramadi on Friday as the Islamic State advanced on the city, and attacks in Baghdad killed 21 people, officials said.
The curfew, which began before dawn, is part of an effort to limit movement in and out of the city as government forces prepare to combat pockets of resistance there, said Sabah Karhout, the chairman of the Anbar provincial council. Ramadi, the capital of the vast Sunni-dominated province of Anbar, is 70 miles west of Baghdad.
The Islamic State has in recent weeks been making gains against the Iraqi military around Ramadi despite the ongoing, U.S.-led coalition airstrikes on the militants.
Capturing Ramadi could have a huge ripple effect throughout Anbar, since controlling the provincial capital would ultimately paralyze the surrounding areas and further help the militants secure another corridor between Syria and Iraq for the passage of fighters, munitions and field artillery.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi met with a delegation from Anbar on Friday, and urged the province’s tribes to side with Iraqi security forces in the fight against the Islamic State militants. The government has repeatedly said that winning over the Sunni tribes is an essential part of the solution in Iraq.