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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Kurdish forces push back ISIS in northern Syria |
| 2014-09-26 |
| Kurdish forces in northern Syria pushed back an advance by ISIS fighters towards a strategic town on the Turkish border on Thursday and appealed for US-led air strikes to target the insurgents’ tanks and heavy armaments. ISIS launched a new offensive to try to capture the border town of Kobani more than a week ago, besieging it from three sides. At least 140,000 Kurds have fled the town and surrounding villages since Friday, crossing into Turkey. The UN refugee agency said the first of eight planned aid flights landed in the southern Turkish city of Adana, carrying pre-fabricated warehouses, sleeping mats, plastic sheeting and cooking utensils to help Turkey cope with the influx. Kurdish and ISIS fighters exchanged artillery and machinegun fire in a cluster of villages about 15 km (9 miles) west of Kobani, where the frontline appeared not to have moved significantly for several days, a Reuters witness said. Kurdish officials meanwhile said ISIS had concentrated their fighters south of the town late on Wednesday and had pushed towards it, but that the main Kurdish armed group in northern Syria, the YPG, had repelled them overnight. “The YPG responded and pushed them back to about 10-15 km (6-9 miles) away,” Idris Nassan, deputy minister for foreign affairs in the Kobani canton, told Reuters by telephone. Syrian Kurdish refugees watching the fighting from a hill on the Turkish side of the border said the ISIS insurgents had not been able to advance from positions they had taken up in olive groves west of Kobani. Turkish military vehicles patrolled their side of the border, with soldiers occasionally moving people away from the hill overlooking the fighting. Heavy weapons fire could also be heard further away from the border inside Syrian territory. The town’s location has been blocking the insurgents from consolidating their gains in northern Syria. The group tried to take the town in July but was repulsed by local forces backed by Kurdish fighters from Turkey. The YPG on Thursday renewed calls for US-led air strikes to hit ISIS positions around Kobani. “Although all ISIS positions and their heavy armaments, including tanks and armoured vehicles around Kobani, are clear and within view for everyone on the front line, it is worth noting that these targets have not been bombed yet,” YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said. “We are of the utmost readiness to cooperate with the international coalition forces against terrorism and give it detailed information about the main targets,” he said. |
| Posted by:Steve White |