Kurdish fighters halted a thrust by Islamic State group extremists toward the heart of the battleground Syrian town of Kobane yesterday, after the UN said thousands of civilians faced the risk of massacre.
The predawn attack came after militants overran the Kurdish headquarters in the border town on Friday, sparking fears they would cut off the last escape route to Turkey.
However, US officials said that while global attention is focused on Kobane, the group formerly known as the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant has been piling pressure on government troops in Iraq, leaving the Iraqi army in a “fragile” position in Anbar Province between Baghdad and the Syrian border.
Photo: AFP
The renewed terrorist drive on the center of Kobane sparked 90 minutes of heavy fighting with the town’s Kurdish defenders before the extremists fell back, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
US-led coalition warplanes also carried out two airstrikes on Islamic State targets south and east of the town early yesterday, according to the Britain-based monitoring group, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria.
US-led warplanes have intensified airstrikes against the group, which has been attacking Kobane for three weeks, but the Pentagon has said that there are limits to what can be done without troops on the ground.
Small groups of Kurdish fighters were trying to harry the encircling extremists with operations across the front line, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told reporters.
UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Friday that 12,000 or so civilians still in or near Kobane, including about 700 mainly elderly people in the town center, “will most likely be massacred” by the Islamic State if the town falls.
Kobane was “literally surrounded” except for one narrow entry and exit point to the Turkish border, De Mistura said on Friday.
He called on Turkey, “if they can, to support the deterrent actions of the coalition through whatever means from their own territory.”
“We would like to appeal to the Turkish authorities in order to allow the flow of volunteers at least, and their equipment to be able to enter the city to contribute to a self-defence operation,” he said.
Turkey has been deeply reluctant to allow weapons or Kurdish fighters to cross the border despite repeated nights of protests among its own large Kurdish minority that have left 31 people dead.
The situation is complicated by the close ties between the town’s Kurdish defenders and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has waged a three-decade insurgency for self-rule in southeastern Turkey that Ankara is determined not to embolden.
Washington has been frustrated over Ankara’s reluctance to commit its well-equipped and well-trained forces to the coalition against the Islamic State group, but reported “progress” after two days of talks in Ankara by the coalition’s coordinator, retired US general John Allen.
Military chiefs from the 21 countries already committed to the US-led coalition are to meet in Washington next week to discuss strategy, Pentagon officials said.
US defense officials insist that the primary focus of the campaign remains Iraq, where there are capable local forces on the ground to work with, particularly Kurdish forces in the north.
However, officials voiced concern about the “tenuous” position of Iraqi troops in Anbar, where the few remaining areas under government control have been subjected to repeated attacks.
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