Kurdish forces continue to drive ISIS back from Kobani, and have retaken more than 100 villages from the jihadists since pushing the last of them out of the urban center.
The ISIS immolation video reveals a totalitarian cult, but Jordan and other regimes in the anti-ISIS coalition are also despotic—while Syria's pro-democratic forces are betrayed.
As ISIS burns the cannabis fields of northern Syria, Kurdish fighters at Kobani claim that ISIS forces besieging the town are snorting cocaine to keep their spirits up.
Kurdish forces at Kobani announced that the town is now under their full control, with ISIS militants driven out of all neighborhoods. The claim was confirmed by the Pentagon.
Fighting broke out between Assad regime troops and Kurdish forces in Syria's divided northern city of Hassakeh, signalling an end to a pact established to keep ISIS at bay.
US media accounts of gains against ISIS at Kobani play up the role of US air-strikes and depreciate that of Kurdish fighters—or even deny the success at Kobani entirely.
Kurdish forces made further gains against ISIS at Kobani in the final days of 2014, while the Peshmerga are preparing an offensive to drive the jihadis from Kurdish lands in Iraq.
Three were killed in southeastern Turkish town of Cizre in clashes between Islamist militants of the Huda-Par and followers of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Backed by US air-strikes, Peshmerga forces liberated the last remaninig Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar. But the Yazidis' home town of Sinjar remains occupied by ISIS.
The Kurdish mayor of the eastern Turkish city of Mardin, Ahmet Türk, apologized to Armenians, Assyrians and Yazidis for Kurdish collaboration in the genocide of 1915.
Syrian rebels announced formation of a new Revolutionary Command Council at a meeting in Turkey—dominated by conservative Islamists but excluding Nusra Front and ISIS.
Iran launched air-strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq, the Pentagon admitted. Meanwhile, it appears that NATO ally Turkey opened its territory to ISIS forces attacking Kobani.
