jihadists in Syria and Iraq as Washington called for the battle
against the Islamic State group to be taken to the Internet.
In Iraq, a car bomb explosion killed at least eight people in a
Baghdad square after a suicide bombing reportedly left dead at least
14 pro-government fighters south of the capital.
An AFP reporter in Turkey just across the border from Kobane said
fierce clashes were raging in the strategic Syrian town, where Kurdish
fighters have been holding off an IS offensive for weeks.
The US military said its warplanes carried out four more air strikes
near Kobane on Sunday and Monday.
But there was no sign yet of promised reinforcements for the town's
defenders, despite plans announced last week for Iraqi Kurdish
peshmerga forces armed with heavy weapons to join them.
A senior Iraqi Kurdish official said the deployment was being held up
by Turkey, which has agreed to allow the peshmerga to pass through its
territory.
"We are ready to send them," said Mustafuz Qader, who heads the
ministry responsible for the peshmerga.
"We are awaiting the stance of the state of Turkey and because of this
have not sent any forces," he said, without elaborating.
Kobane has become a crucial symbol in the battle against IS, an
extremist Sunni group that has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq,
declared an Islamic "caliphate" and committed widespread atrocities.
Washington has forged an alliance of Western and Arab nations to
combat the group and on Monday met with coalition partners in Kuwait
City to boost efforts to counter the jihadists' online propaganda.
- IS 'perverts the innocent' -
Retired US general John Allen, who is coordinating the US-led campaign
against IS, said the group was promoting its "horrendous brand of
warfare" online, where it "recruits and perverts the innocent".
"It is only when we contest ISIL's presence online, deny the
legitimacy of the message it sends to vulnerable young people... it is
only then that ISIL will truly be defeated," Allen said, using an
alternative name for the group.
The coalition partners pledged to take steps to boost efforts to
prevent the recruitment of foreign fighters for IS, including online.
Concern is growing over the group's online influence in attracting
foreign fighters and promoting attacks by disaffected Muslims on
Western targets.
The US military said the coalition had also carried out seven new
strikes against IS in Iraq on Sunday and Monday, including near the
key Mosul dam and southeast of the militant bastion of Fallujah.
Iraq has struggled to regain territory taken by IS in a lightning
offensive in June, though it announced at the weekend that its forces
had retaken the town of Jurf al-Sakhr south of Baghdad.
Sources said Monday a suicide bomber had subsequently detonated an
explosives-rigged Humvee armoured vehicle near security forces and
allied militiamen in the area, killing at least 14.
And a car bomb exploded in Baghdad's busy Wathiq Square on Monday
night, killing at least eight people, officials said.
- Assault on Syrian city -
Syrian rebels were meanwhile reported to have launched a major assault
on the government-held city of Idlib in a bid to consolidate their
control over the country's northwest.
Rebels seized control of most of Idlib province early in Syria's
three-and-a-half-year-old civil war but troops have held out in the
provincial capital, resupplied by air.
Fighters of Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front and Islamist rebel units
attacked the city from all sides from dawn, the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said.
Rebels made a previous attempt this year to take the city but Monday's
assault was "the biggest since the beginning of the revolt" in 2011,
said the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman.
The rise of IS has destabilised the region, including in Syria's
neighbour Lebanon where weekend clashes killed at least 16 people and
forced thousands to flee a neighbourhood of second city Tripoli.
Lebanese soldiers quelled Islamist militants in their Tripoli
stronghold of Bab al-Tebbaneh and were in full control Monday, earning
praise for their courage from the United Sates.
"We condemn those who seek to sow chaos in Lebanon and are confident
that the Lebanese people will persevere if they stand united in the
face of this threat," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
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