ISIS Bodies Dropped At Hospital As Fighting Around Kobani Continues To Explode
Despite reports that U.S. coalition airstrikes aren’t having much impact in the fight against ISIS, the fact that 70 bodies of the Islamic terrorist group’s fighters were dropped off at a hospital over the last four days says otherwise.
The hospital is located in the Syrian town of Tal Abyad, on the Turkish border, about 50 miles from Raqqa, reports CNN.
ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) invaded and took over Raqqa last year, its brutal and unforgiving fighters terrorizing the town’s populace to impose their interpretation of Islamic law on the people, slaughtering the men, raping the women, and even inexplicably beheading children. According to CNN, Raqqa was a liberal city before ISIS stormed in and made it “a kind of headquarters.”
Particularly around another Syrian border town, the city of Kobani, the U.S. led coalition airstrikes do appear to have had a significant impact. Just weeks ago the city was reportedly ready to fall into the hands of the ISIS Islamic terrorist militants, and intimidating black ISIS flags were even planted on hilltops around Kobani.
But with the aid of the airstrikes, Kurdish and Iraqi fighters slowly gained the upper hand, battling the ISIS militants on the ground, pushing them back despite the terrorist group’s best efforts.
Reports of Kurdish troops gathering the bodies of dead ISIS militants and removing them from the suburban battlefields in and around Kobani, also points to a turn of the tide against ISIS.
“We know we’ve killed several hundreds of them (ISIS militants),” reported Pentagon spokesperson, Rear Admiral John Kirby.
The strategy against ISIS is working, U.S. Central Command General Lloyd Austin said on Friday. However, the strategy against ISIS was working but would require “strategic patience,” and Kobani still could fall.
Al Arabiya News seems to concur, reporting that Kobani is seeing its “fiercest fighting in days.”
There was heavy fighting overnight into Sunday in Kobani, as the ISIS militants lobbed mortars at the Kurdish defenders. ISIS also used car bombs in their attacks, according to local sources and a monitoring group speaking on Sunday.
ISIS, “which controls much of Syria and Iraq,” according to Al Arabiya, shot off 44 mortars into Kurdish controlled areas of Kobani on Saturday, some of the errant shells landing just over the border in Turkey.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS added to the 44 total with an additional four more mortars popped off Sunday.
U.S. coalition led airstrikes, meanwhile, have slowed for the intense campaign of the past week when there were at least 50 attacks conducted against ISIS positions.
[Image via CBS News]