Street fighting raged between Kurdish defenders and Islamic State militants who advanced into Kobani yesterday after subjecting the Syrian border town to an assault lasting almost three weeks, a monitoring group said.
Islamic State had earlier raised its black flag over a building in the outskirts and forced thousands more of Kobani’s mainly Kurdish inhabitants to flee for their lives across the nearby border into Turkey.
Islamic State fighters had penetrated about 100 metres into the eastern part of the town, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group which monitors the war through its sources on the ground.
“The battle has now become street fighting, it is happening inside the town, the eastern part of the town,” the Observatory’s Rami Abdelrahman said.
Islamic State wants to consolidate a dramatic sweep across northern Iraq and Syria
Islamic State wants to take Kobani to consolidate a dramatic sweep across northern Iraq and Syria, in the name of an absolutist version of Sunni Islam, that has sent shockwaves through the Middle East.
Strikes by American and Gulf state warplanes have failed to halt Islamic State’s advance on Kobani, which it has besieged from three sides and pounded with heavy artillery. Forced to flee Kobani by the latest fighting, frightened residents crossed into Turkey through Yumurtalik, an improvised border crossing, and ambulances with blaring sirens shuttled back and forth between the Syrian town and Turkey.
“We can hear the sound of clashes on the street,” Parwer Ali Mohamed, a translator for the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), told Reuters by phone as he fled.
“More than 2,000 people including women and children are being evacuated. Turkish police are checking our luggage now,” Ali said.
A black flag belonging to Islamic State was visible from across the Turkish border atop a four-storey building close to the scene of some of the fiercest clashes in recent days.
Mortars have rained down on residential areas of Kobani, and stray fire has hit Turkish territory frequently in recent days wounding people and damaging houses.
Islamic State also fought intense battles over the weekend for control of Mistanour, a strategic hill overlooking Kobani. A video released by the group on Sunday appeared to show its fighters in control of radio masts on the summit, but the footage could not be independently confirmed.
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party called for street demonstrations in Turkey to protest at Islamic State’s assault on Kobani, where the situation was “extremely critical”.
Militants also carried out two suicide attacks in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah, the Observatory said, killing at least 30 people.
“The attacks targeted checkpoints run by Kurdish fighters on the western entrance of the city,” Abdelrahman said.