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ISIS troops renew attacks on Kobane
[ARA News] KOBANE – Militant fighters of the Islamic State (ISIS) launched on Friday a fresh attack on the Kurdish city of Kobane, on Syria-Turkey border, targeting headquarters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG).

ISIS militants hit several villages in the western suburb of Kobane with dozens of mortar shells, Kurdish sources reported.

Speaking to ARA News in Kobane, YPG member Nuraddin Gaban said that the ISIS-led attack, which took place on Friday evening, has targeted YPG positions west of the border city.

The jihadi fighters bombed the YPG-held villages of Tel al-Abar, Qereh Qoumlek and Boraz in southwestern Kobane with more than 25 mortar shells.

At least 13 people were wounded during the attack, including civilians and four YPG fighters.

“Today’s attack was a new desperate attempt by ISIS terror group to hit the ranks of the YPG,” Gaban said.

“After losing large territories to the Kurdish forces in Kobane, terrorists of ISIS have repeatedly launched such cowardly attacks to impede the YPG’s progress and to terrorize people who have recently returned to their homes.”

The Kurdish units responded to the attack by bombing ISIS positions on the western bank of the Euphrates River on Friday midnight.

“Our (YPG) units hit ISIS fighting positions near Jarablus with heavy artillery shells and bombed two tactical units,” the YPG member reported, without giving further details on ISIS losses in the counter-attack.

The radical group has been striving to regain positions in the countryside of Kobane and other areas in Aleppo province, north Syria, after losing ground to the Kurds.

On December 26, 2015, Kurdish YPG forces and allied rebels from the western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expelled ISIS militants from the Tishreen Dam and dozens of villages on the Euphrates River.

By losing the Tishreen Dam ISIS is considered to have lost one of its most strategic supply lines, as the dam has severed the group for more than two years to move its militants and weapons between its main bastion of Raqqa and the cities of Manbij and Jarablus in the northern countryside of Aleppo.
Posted by: badanov 2016-02-13
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=445258