Cracks appear in America's anti-Islamic State coalition

America's air war against the Islamic State in Syria has had a rough start, as cracks appear in the hastily assembled coalition and evidence starts to surface that the airstrikes may be causing more harm than good.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - America's ally, Turkey, has so far refused to actually engage the Islamic State in Syria, frustrating American and world officials by parking tanks and soldiers overlooking the Kurdish town of Kobane, but not engaging with the Islamic State fighters engaged there.

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Turkey has now allowed the U.S. to use airbases in Turkey to strike Islamic State targets, but the continued airstrikes are angering many who have been fighting for three years in Syria's ongoing civil war.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has seen the most benefit from the U.S. airstrikes.  He has used the shift in military force to attack moderate rebel groups which President Obama had designated partners of the United States in the war against Islamic extremism.

So far, the U.S. has hit oil facilities, granaries, electric generating plants besides just military targets of the Islamic State. This has caused shortages and price increases in Syria's largely rebel-held north, something that is causing immediate harm to ordinary Syrians, but does little to the well-funded Islamic State militants.

The first string of airstrikes against the Islamic State actually destroyed numerous targets controlled by U.S. friendly rebels. Many Syrians who had appealed for American intervention against Assad have begun denouncing the United States, and protesting the airstrikes.

"Everyone is angry with the airstrikes. For three years we have been asking for support, and now the West decides to hit only the Islamic State?" said Abu Wassim, a moderate rebel in Syria's northern Idlib province.

These airstrikes have weakened the Islamic State, but more importantly, they're "empowering the regime."

"The airstrikes are hitting the targets they are intended to hit," said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. "They take out [Islamic State] positions. They take out [Islamic State] tanks. They take out [Islamic State] weapons. That's obviously helping."

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