Refusing to buckle to violent protests demanding more action, Turkey's foreign minister insisted Thursday his nation "is on Kobani's side" -- referring to the Syrian border town in imminent danger of falling to ISIS -- but still won't unilaterally send ground troops to save it. Time may be running out. Smoke rose over Kobani, a Kurdish enclave in Syria that's a stone's throw from the Turkish border, as U.S. warplanes pounded ISIS targets from above while Kurdish fighters tried to fend off the Islamist extremist group from below. But ISIS isn't backing down. It seems to have wrested control of one-third of Kobani, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group.
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Report: 30 die amid protests; 2 police assessing protest sites also killed
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Group: ISIS controls about one-third of Kobani, a Kurdish enclave near the Turkish border
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Syrian Kurd: "The massacre is about to happen, and we have to act very ... promptly"
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Minister: Turkey will do "its part" against ISIS, but won't dispatch ground troops solo
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He also denied "discrimination on a sectarian basis" -- i.e., not choosing to act because @placeholder were the primary victims in Kobani -- was in play in Turkey's decisions.
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The United States wants Turkey to do more, U.S. administration officials said, and is urging Turkey to at least fire artillery at @placeholder targets across the border.
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Witnesses inside @placeholder told CNN that airstrikes Wednesday had been welcome but that the situation worsened Thursday.
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The fighter said @placeholder troops have re-entered the eastern side of the city and called for the U.S.-led coalition to launch airstrikes there, where the onslaught is greatest.
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A media activist also in the town described intense street-to-street fighting around the @placeholder security forces' headquarters, near the center of Kobani, as well as in the south of the town.
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The @placeholder military announced Thursday that it had launched six airstrikes south of Kobani, destroying two buildings, one tank, one heavy machine gun, as well as hitting one large and two small groups of ISIS fighters.
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The U.S. military announced Thursday that it had launched six airstrikes south of Kobani, destroying two buildings, one tank, one heavy machine gun, as well as hitting one large and two small groups of @placeholder fighters.
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Another three airstrikes north of Kobani hit two small @placeholder groups and destroyed two buildings.