US raids have failed to weaken ISIL -Syria

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The Syrian government has criticised US-led air strikes in Syria for failing to weaken the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), as Damascus called on Turkey to do more to stop the armed group.

Syria’s foreign minister said in a interview on Friday that he was willing to work with any country to tackle ISIL but that unless Turkey tightened its border controls, the group would not be stopped.

“All the indications say that [ISIL] today, after two months of coalition air strikes, is not weaker,” Walid Muallem said in an interview with Al Mayadeen TV.

“If the Security Council and Washington do not force Turkey to control its borders then all of this action will not eliminate [ISIL].”

Turkey, which has a porous 900km border with Syria, has strongly denied accusations it allows fighters cross into Syria to joing the war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Thousands of foreign fighters are believed to have joined ISIL in its self-proclaimed caliphate, after it seized large areas of eastern Syria and western Iraq.

US-led coalition jets have carried out hundreds of strikes against ISIL positions in Syria since September, mainly near the besieged town of Kobane, as it aims to roll back gains by the group.

The Syrian civil war, which began three and a half years ago as an uprising against Assad’s regime has killed an estimated 200,000 people, with the UN and rights groups repeatedly urging Damascus to refrain from targeting civilian areas.