Turkey yesterday said that about 130,000 people had flooded across its border from Syria fleeing an advance by Islamic State (IS) militants on a strategic Kurdish border town.
The massive influx comes as militants advance toward Ain al-Arab, known as Kobane to the Kurds, Syria’s third-largest Kurdish town.
They have seized dozens of villages in their advance and there have been reports of executions in areas now under their control.
Syrian opposition officials and Kurdish activists have called for international intervention by the US-led coalition assembled to fight IS, but there has been no sign yet of Washington expanding its air campaign in Iraq to Syria.
The IS group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq, declared an Islamic “caliphate” in areas under its control and committed widespread atrocities, including beheadings and crucifixions.
Yesterday an IS spokesman called for the killing of Western citizens whose countries have joined a US-led coalition against his group.
The IS advance toward Ain al-Arab began on Tuesday night last week, with the militants swiftly gaining ground, prompting a mass exodus to Turkey.
Ankara has opened its door to the fleeing Syrian Kurds, with Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus yesterday saying that the number of arrivals was now more than 130,000.
The refugees crossing the border, the vast majority of them from Syria’s Kurdish minority, described their terror as IS militants seized their villages.
“They said in the mosques that they could kill all Kurds between seven and 77 years old,” Sahab Basravi said. “So we collected our things and left, immediately.”
However, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said that Kurdish forces backed by Arab Syrians had intensified their attacks against IS fighters, killing 21 of them overnight and slowing their advance.
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