EFFORTS TO FREE HOSTAGE CONTINUE
A Japanese diplomat emerged from talks in Jordan on Monday with no signs of progress in securing the release of a freelance journalist held hostage by the extremist Islamic State group. Japanese officials refused direct comment on the contents of the talks in Jordan, where Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Yasuhide Nakayama is coordinating regional efforts to save hostage Kenji Goto. The Islamic State group said in an online video on Jan. 20 that it had two Japanese hostages and would kill them within 72 hours unless Japan paid it $200 million — the same amount Tokyo recently pledged in aid to nations fighting the militants. Over the weekend, a new, unverified video showed a still photo of Goto, a 47-year-old journalist, holding a picture of what appears to be the body of fellow hostage Haruna Yukawa. It included a recording of a voice claiming to be Goto, saying his captors now want the release of a prisoner held in Jordan instead of a ransom.
— Associated Press
Jubilant Kurdish fighters ousted Islamic State militants from the key Syrian border town of Kobani on Monday after a four-month battle — a significant victory for both the Kurds and the U.S.-led coalition.
The Kurds raised their flag on a hill that once flew the Islamic State group’s black banner. On Kobani’s war-ravaged streets, gunmen fired in the air in celebration, male and female fighters embraced, and troops danced in their baggy uniforms.
The failure to capture Kobani was a major blow to the extremists whose hopes for an easy victory dissolved into a costly siege under withering airstrikes by coalition forces and an assault by the Kurdish militia.
For the U.S. and its partners, Kobani became a strategic prize, especially after they increased the number of airstrikes against Islamic State fighters there in October.
“Daesh gambled on Kobani and lost,” said senior Kurdish official Idriss Nassan, using the Arabic acronym for the group.
Kobani-based journalist Farshad Shami said the few civilians who remained had joined in the celebration. Most of the town of about 60,000 people had fled to Turkey to escape the fighting.
Several U.S. officials said they couldn’t confirm that Kurdish fighters had gained full control of Kobani, but added that they have no reason to disbelieve the claims.
The official said Islamic State militants still have a considerable presence in outlying areas around Kobani and are still putting up stiff resistance to the Kurds in those pockets outside it.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighters of the main Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, where searching houses in the eastern suburbs of the town and dismantling and detonating bombs and booby-traps left behind.
Capturing Kobani would have given the Islamic State militants control of a border crossing with Turkey and open direct lines for their positions along the frontier.
The U.S.-led air assault began Sept. 23, with Kobani the target of about a half-dozen daily airstrikes on average. More than 80 percent of all coalition airstrikes in Syria have been in or around the town.
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