Alan Henning

There are a lot of points there, Mark.
I do think the lack of action with countries attacking Syria is because of Assad's regime who are fighting IS.
Plus Putin is in Assad's corner.

An audio ban was temporary but didn't really achieve anything in the end in N. Ireland though.
It depends how far reaching ideology is but yes, Choudary would not get his message across if it was silent.
I have never seen him talk on the TV though (perhaps because I don't watch much TV) but doesn't he preach to the converted anyway?

The enemy at the gate, indeed. I have a lot of faith in the Turks. But time will tell I guess.

And what a potentialnblow for European nights in the Champions League.....

Things don't look good: Eastern Turkey is Kurdish and they're rather strongly disliked by the government so whilst brave

Kurdish women and

and Kurdish children engage the enemy, bits and pieces of the

Turkish army park-up along its border with Syria close to Kobane and has a brew. Other Turks rush from the big cities

to watch the IS attacks on Kobane and

engage in some picture-taking.

The brave Turkish army and police has seen some action

albeit against fellow Turkish demonstrators during an anti-Islamic Stater protest close to

the Turkish-Syrian border at Sanliurfa as well as

Ankara, the nation's capital and

Istanbul where the police used water cannon to disperse the protesters.

Some good news though with the arrest of a recently-returned IS fighter, apparently nicknamed "the Surgeon", in west London early yesterday morning. It's believed he was about to carry-out a beheading.

Yes. And hopefully more to come.

More of what - beheadings? I suspect that the allegedly-English terrorist who rejoices in the nom de guerre "Jihadist John" intends exactly that.

I really wonder if the Americans are truly committed to fighting ISIS because a set of photographs of the same building in Kobane, taken over 3 days, would suggest that the brave septics are dropping large bags of flour onto their targets. Or maybe cement.

This is the building in Kobane, photographed on Monday the day

ISIS irregulars hoisted a black flag on its roof. Here, from a slightly different angle, is the

aftermath of yesterday's bombing. And here's these same building photographed this morning

The ISIS flag is still there!

No.

More arrests of recently returned IS fighters.

Back to my earlier comment. I thought the Turks had a strong and substantial army.

Not the same building? Slightly different build.

According to Al Jazeera, IS fighters have withdrawn from Kobane.

Probably because there's nobody left to fight! The city is reportedly deserted apart from a few ISIS irregulars wandering around. But aren't the Turkish security forces wonderful and brave: yesterday they killed 8 of their own citizens. True enough they were protesters. And Kurdish and all Kurds are terrorists say the Turks. So that's all right then.

Even if the dithering Obama and the Tory Toff won't send ground troops into Iraq or Syria, Tony Abbott, the Australian Prime Minister, may well do so, reports the Beeb. He recently sent 600 troops to the country, presumably equipped with full eskies, and six Super Hornets whose pilots, like their British compadres (those magnificent young men in their flying machines) are confined to the Iraqi sandpit. Britain's Tornados are somewhat antiquated and were due to be pensioned-off next year and be replaced with Eurofighter Typhoons. This aircraft you may recall, was developed by a coalition of countries - including the UK - but nobody seemed to be that keen to buy it. Too expensive. Step forward one Tony Blair and now we're struck with a plane that's costlier, slower and not nearly as versatile as the one it's to replace (Tornado GR-4). Except it won't now, for another two years at least. The new man at the MoD, Fallon, has announced that Britain will keep its Tornados until at least mid-2016.

Yes. I believe they have a big problem of a similar nature in Oz.

Yes they do. With some 290,000 regular troops, Turkey has the second largest army in NATO but there is absolutely no way that the Turks will help the Syrian Kurds fight ISIS. Turkey has a large Kurdish population that has been engaged in a secessionist and at times bloody struggle for many years although a ceasefire was brokered last year. The Syrian Kurds, who are seeking to establish a Kurdish state-within-a-state in northern Syria along the Turkish border, are affiliated with the Kurds across the border in Turkey. The Turkish government hates both these groups with equal venom but not so the Iraqi Kurds with whom Turkey trades, even though the Iraqi Kurds are allied to the Syrian and Turkish Kurds. Just to add to the complexity, Israel actively supports the Kurds as does Hezbollah whose fighters have been engaged in countering ISIS insurgents in Lebanon.

Are you confused yet?

Over the last few weeks, Turkey has gone out of its way to hinder the war effort against ISIS. It has actively prevented its own Kurds from crossing over into Syria to join Kurdish forces there whilst at the same time turning a blind eye to foreign jihadists and their recruiters/guides using its country as a staging post to join ISIS. And it has so far refused to allow NATO to use to its air bases which is why our magnificent young men and their flying machines are billeted in Cyprus and the Americans are using carrier-borne aircraft. But it was quick to ask for NATO protection when ISIS forces started to besiege Kobane. Maybe Turkey is waiting for ISIS to attack the country so that it can invoke NATO's principle of collective self-defence which could drag the entire military alliance into war.