Iran Rejects U.S. Bid to Coordinate Against ISIS

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected a U.S. bid to coordinate efforts to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Just hours after being released from the hospital following prostate surgery, Khamenei sent a series of tweets from his official Twitter account criticizing President Obama's push to a build a coalition to "degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS." Several international leaders have gathered in Paris today to forge an international coalition against the extremists. Neither Iran nor Syria were invited, according to the AP. Khamenei called the strategy "empty, shallow and biased."

Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir Follow Lots of evidence shows the contradictory & false claims&behaviors of US concerning #ISIS & its invitation of #Iran to join this coalition. 4:03 AM - 15 Sep 2014

Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir Follow The action which broke #ISIS’s back in Iraq was not done by #US but by the army & popular forces of #Iraq while US & #ISIS also know this. 4:13 AM - 15 Sep 2014

Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir Follow I rejected US offer to #Iran abt #ISIS because US has corrupted its hands in this issue.Mr.Zarif rejected US Secretary of State’s offer too. 4:23 AM - 15 Sep 2014 Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir Follow Our disagreement on #Iran’s cooperation with #US over #ISIS is because the US itself has been involved in creating & spreading #terrorism. 4:32 AM - 15 Sep 2014 Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir Follow US goal in planning a war on #ISIS is to dominate the region& turn #Iraq& #Syria to #Pakistan where it can commit #crimes whenever it wants. 4:41 AM - 15 Sep 2014

He continued with that tone in a final jab at the U.S. on Monday.

Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir Follow While I was in the hospital, I had a hobby and it was to listen to #US officials’ remarks about the attack on #ISIS! 4:51 AM - 15 Sep 2014

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The chief spokeswoman for the State Department, Jen Psaki, tweeted responses to Khamenei hours later.

Psaki confirmed that the U.S. had talked to Iran about its efforts to combat ISIS but denied that there was any discussion of coordinating militarily.

Jen Psaki ✔ @statedeptspox Follow #ISIL presents a serious threat to #Iran as it does to every other state in the region. 7:07 AM - 15 Sep 2014 Jen Psaki ✔ @statedeptspox Follow It's no secret that we have had discussions w Iran about the counter-ISIL efforts in Iraq on margins of our P5+1 talks on nuclear issue. 7:08 AM - 15 Sep 2014

Jen Psaki ✔ @statedeptspox Follow We are not and will not coordinate militarily with Iran. We will be continuing talks on the nuclear issue later this week in NY. 7:08 AM - 15 Sep 2014

Jen Psaki ✔ @statedeptspox Follow There may be another opportunity on the margins in the future to discuss #Iraq w Iran. 7:09 AM - 15 Sep 2014

Despite the dispute with Iran, international support for Obama's plan grew over the weekend, with multiple unnamed Arab states and Australia pledging to join the military effort.

Diplomats from 30 nations that gathered in Paris issued a statement after their talks pledging to help Iraq fight ISIS "by any means necessary," according to Agence France-Presse. That included "appropriate military assistance, in line with the needs expressed by the Iraqi authorities, in accordance with international law and without jeopardizing civilian security."

The statement, however, did not include any mention of Syria, the ISIS "safe haven" that Obama said he may target as well.

This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/09/iran-rejects-us-bid-to-coordinate-against-isis/380192/

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BEIRUT (AP) — Kurdish fighters captured more than a dozen villages from militants of the Islamic State group in heavy fighting across northeastern Syria, an activist group and a Kurdish official said Monday.

The fighting in the mainly-Kurdish Hassakeh province came as diplomats at a Paris conference tried to agree on a global strategy to fight the extremist group, which has captured large tracts of territory in Iraq and Syria.

Kurdish fighters have been repelling the advances of the Islamic State militants for more than a year in northern Syria. The battle-hardened Kurdish force, known by its acronym YPK, has been the most successful at fighting the Islamic State group, which has routed Iraqi and Syrian armed forces.

As Syria's fractured rebels have fought a two-front war against President Bashar Assad's forces and the Islamic State group, Kurdish forces seeking greater autonomy have defended their region against the extremist group, occasionally partnering with rebels to beat back the Islamic militants.

After ignoring the spread of the Islamic State, the Syrian military has recently gone on the offensive against the extremist group, which has seized at least three army bases and killed hundreds of soldiers.

YPK fighters have captured some 14 villages around the northeastern area of Tal Hamis since the latest round of fighting with the Islamic State group began Saturday, according to the Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for Syria's powerful Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, whose members dominate the fighting group.

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A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter launches mortar shells towards Zummar, controlled by Islamic State (IS), …

"We will fight them with all that we have," Khalil told The Associated Press by telephone. "Those (Islamic State) can only be deterred by force."

President Barack Obama announced last week that the United States will ramp up airstrikes and try to build an international coalition to degrade and eventually destroy the Islamic State group. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited several Arab states, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in recent days in order to build a coalition aimed at beating back the extremist group.

Spokesman Khalil said the Kurdish fighters were "ready to join any political coalition to strike this terrorist group."

"We are fighting, on behalf of the world, the terrorism of Daesh," he said, using an Arabic name to refer to the group.

But the Kurdish fighting group is viewed with suspicion by the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, which says the PYD is linked to Assad's government. Turkey is also wary of the group, which it believes is affiliated to the Kurdish PKK movement, which waged a long and bloody insurgency in Turkey's southeast.

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This undated file image posted on a militant website on Jan. 14, 2014, which has been verified and i …

In addition to losing the villages, the Islamic State group suffered another blow in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, where the only bridge linking parts of the city held by militants with its suburbs was blown up. Abdurrahman said Islamic State fighters would now have to bring in supplies by boat.

Syria's state-run television said government forces were responsible for blowing up the al-Siyasiyeh Bridge over the Euphrates river.

In the Golan Heights along the disputed frontier between Israel and Syria, U.N. peacekeepers withdrew from at least one base, said an activist in the area who uses the name Luay.

The withdrawal came after Syrian rebels, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front, advanced across the Syrian-controlled part of the territory and briefly seized dozens of U.N. peacekeepers. They were later released unharmed. The activist Luay said peacekeepers withdrew from two bases earlier this month, but were spotted leaving yet another this week, near a town known as Khan Arnabeh.

An Israeli army spokesman said U.N. peacekeepers crossed into Israel, but would not provide further details. He spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with military guidelines.

In the northern city of Aleppo, at least 11 people were killed in government airstrikes on the rebel-held neighborhood of Marjeh, according to the Britain-based Observatory -- which relies on a network of activists inside Syria -- and Aleppo-based activist Mohammed Wissam.

Another 15 people were killed in the central opposition-held town of Talbiseh after Syrian military helicopters dropped crude bombs, according to the Observatory and a nearby activist, Tariq Badrakhan.

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Associated Press writers Diaa Hadid in Beirut and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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Over a hundred migrants rescued off the Libyan coast

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 700 people fleeing Africa and the Middle East may have drowned in shipwrecks in the Mediterranean over the last week, bringing the death toll this year to almost 3,000, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Monday.

In the worst incident, as many as 500 migrants are believed to have died after traffickers rammed their ship off Malta's coast last week, an event that only came to light this weekend in testimony from two of nine survivors.

The survivors said the traffickers ordered the migrants to change vessels in the middle of the Mediterranean. The migrants refused, leading to a confrontation that ended when traffickers rammed the ship carrying the migrants, causing it to sink, IOM spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told Reuters in Geneva.

"Some 500 people were on board - Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians and Sudanese. They were trying to reach Europe," Berthiaume said.

"That means that 700 people perished at sea these last days in the Mediterranean, the deadliest incidents in the space of a few days," she said.

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Crew members from a fishing boat look at a capsized vessel in the sea near Samos island, an eastern …

The vessel had set off on Saturday, Sept 6 from Damiette, Egypt, and sank off Malta's coast on Sept 10th, she said, adding that some of the survivors were only rescued on Friday.

The U.N. refugee agency also learned of the shipwreck off Malta, but said its information was that it occurred on Friday. The UNHCR could not confirm the circumstances of the incident but understood that the death toll was closer to 300.

"We don't have confirmation of this account of alleged ramming. That was given to Malta authorities by survivors, but we can't confirm it," said UNHCR spokesman Francis Markus.

The UNHCR was trying to get confirmation of five shipwrecks in all. "At least 500 people have died or are missing in the last three days", he said.

'DEADLIEST WEEKEND EVER'

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Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) sailors watch the body of a drowned migrant being lowered from their shi …

"It was without any doubt the deadliest weekend ever in the Mediterranean," Carlotta Sami of the UNHCR said.

In the incident off Malta, nine people survived and were picked up boats, Berthiaume said. IOM officials interviewed two Palestinian survivors in Sicily, Italy, while other survivors were taken to Malta and to Crete, Greece, she said.

Another ship packed with up to 250 African emigrants sank off the Libyan coast, and most of them are feared dead, a spokesman for the Libyan navy said late on Sunday. Some 26 people survived.

Migrants have been streaming out of North Africa, mostly lawless Libya, in rickety boats in rising numbers for years. Many head for Italy, a gateway to the European Union (EU).

"A combination of factors have led to a major increase. They do not have other very easy options to get anywhere else from Libya. They are not able to get to surrounding countries in North Africa from Libya. These are all factors pushing up the number of people desperate to make the crossing who are preyed on by unscrupulous traffickers," Markus said.

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Italian military personnel disembark from a boat carrying the bodies of African migrants killed in a …

Some 130,000 people have arrived in Europe by sea so far this year, compared with 60,000 last year, according to the UNHCR. Italy has received more than 118,000, most of them rescued at sea under its naval operation Mare Nostrum.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres and UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie visited the naval rescue headquarters in Malta on Sunday, meeting survivors, the agency said in a statement issued on Monday.

"Amidst concerns about the sustainability of the Italian Mare Nostrum operation, they also called for increased efforts by European nations to contribute to rescue efforts and reduce deaths at sea," the UNHCR said.

Half of those arriving in Europe by boat are refugees from Syria and Eritrea, according to the agency.

"We all need to wake up to the scale of this crisis. There is a direct link between the conflicts in Syria and elsewhere and the rise in deaths at sea in the Mediterranean," Jolie said.

"Unless we address the root causes of these conflicts, the numbers of refugees dying or unable to find protection will continue to rise," she said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Respiratory Virus Enterovirus D68 Spreads to the Northeast

Enterovirus D68, the respiratory illness suspected of hospitalizing hundreds of children in the nation, has now spread to the Northeast and is likely to hit the whole country.

Connecticut and New York are the latest states to report cases of the rapidly spreading virus that has targeted young children, especially those withasthma, in 21 states.

The Connecticut Department of Public Healthreceived reports "from two hospitals in different parts of the state of clusters of severe respiratory illness among young children that could be due toenterovirus D68," the agency said in a statement.

Connecticut is working with the Centers for Disease Control to confirm the cases.

The New York State Department of Health has also confirmed more than a dozen cases of enterovirus D68 in children living in the state's capital and central regions, officials said.

The CDC has not confirmed New York's cases.

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As of Saturday, enterovirus D68 had spread to 21 states across the Midwest and East Coast, with confirmed cases spanning from New Mexico to Montana to Delaware.

The virus is likely to spread across the country, ABC News' Dr. Richard Besser said Sunday morning.

"It's very hard for a virus to be limited by borders," Besser said. "I expect that it's going to hit the whole country."

Enterovirus D68 comes from a family of enteroviruses that can cause cold-like symptoms, typically during the month of September.

Besser warned parents to watch out for symptoms of coughs and wheezing among their children, especially if their children are asthmatic.

"The best approach for prevention is what we talk about all the time for respiratory infections, colds, and flus and that's really good hand washing," Besser said.

There have been no reported cases of adults contracting the virus.

Adults may already have built an immunity towards the virus from previous infections, or may just get a milder version of the disease, Besser said.

Children who contract enterovirus D68 first suffer from what appears to be a common cold, with symptoms including a runny nose, coughing, and sneezing, according to Besser.

The symptoms then escalate to difficulty breathing. Besser said parents should look out for their children exhibiting signs of wheezing, difficulty eating or speaking, and blueness around the lips.

Doctors have found a way to treat the symptoms, helping kids breath more easily so they can get through the virus, Besser said.

"It's the same medicine that's used for children who have asthma," he said. "But when I was in the emergency room this week in St. Louis, they were giving it to children who didn't have asthma, and you could just see them turn around. Their airways would open up -- some of them could leave the emergency room. Some had to stay, but the medicine helps a lot."

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The entire country could soon be plagued with enterovirus D68, suspected of sending hundreds to the hospital.
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