Syria OK with U.S. airstrikes on Islamic State, foreign minister says

Syria's foreign minister said Monday that his government is satisfied with the U.S.-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State group, adding that the airstrikes should be expanded to include all other militant groups in Syria.

In an interview with The Associated Press at the United Nations, Walid al-Moallem said the fight against terrorism has aligned Damascus with Western and Arab opponents in fighting the same enemy.

Al-Moallem said the United States does not inform Syria of every strike before it happens, "but it's OK."

"We are fighting ISIS, they are fighting ISIS," he said, referring to the extremist group by one of its acronyms.

During his speech before the UN General Assembly, al-Moallem cautioned that the United States and its allies, which support "moderate" rebels who have fought alongside al-Qaida-linked fighters in Syria's civil war, projects a "double standard" in its dealings with factions of Syrian rebels hoping to overthrow President Bashar Assad.

He spoke as U.S.-led coalition airstrikes targeted towns in northern and eastern Syria controlled by the Islamic State group, including one attack that Syrian activists said hit a grain silo and reportedly killed two civilians.

Meanwhile, Islamic State militants were closing in Monday on a Kurdish area on the border with Turkey -- an advance unhindered so far by the coalition airstrikes.

Islamic State fighters pounded the city of Kobani with mortars and artillery shells, advancing within three miles of the Kurdish frontier city, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Nawaf Khalil, a Kurdish official.

The Islamic State extremists intensified their shelling of the border region following U.S.-led strikes Saturday. The aerial assault appeared to have done little to thwart the militants, Kurdish officials and activists said. Three mortar shells landed in a field in nearby Turkey, the Turkish military said.

The push by Islamic State fighters caused thousands more Kurds to flee the Kobani area Monday, adding to some 150,000 refugees who have fled to Turkey since mid-September, one of the largest influxes of Syrian refugees since the war began 3 1/2 years ago.

With Zachary R. Dowdy