Beirut: Daesh has reinforced fighters who are battling Kurdish forces for control of a Syrian town at the border with Turkey, a redeployment triggered by US-led air strikes on the group elsewhere, a Kurdish military official said.
Ocalan Iso, deputy leader of the Kurdish forces defending the town of Kobane at the Turkish border, said more Daesh fighters and tanks had arrived since the US-led coalition began air strikes on the group on Tuesday.
“The number of their fighters has increased, the number of their tanks has increased since the bombardment of Raqqa,” Iso said by telephone. He repeated calls for the US-led coalition to expand its air strikes to Daesh positions near Kobane, which is also known as Ain Al Arab.
“Kobane is in danger,” he said.
The US-led air strikes on Daesh in Syria have so far targeted the provinces of Raqqa, Deir Al Zor and Hasakah.
Daesh launched a major offensive against Kobane last week, forcing nearly 140,000 Syrian Kurds to flee across the border into Turkey within days — the largest and fastest exodus of civilians since the Syrian conflict began in 2011.
Iso said Daesh fighters had advanced to within 8km from the southern periphery of Kobane — closer than they have been at any stage in the latest offensive.
“We call on American forces to hit their positions. They are 8km from Kobane. They were 25km away before,” he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in the Syrian conflict, earlier reported air strikes on Daesh positions to the west of Kobane by warplanes that appeared to cross from Turkey.
But Kurdish officials in Kobane could not confirm the report, and Turkey said neither its air space nor a US air base in the southern Turkish town of Incirlik had been used in the air strikes.
A group of several dozen Syrian Kurds who had fled the fighting watched from a hillside on the Turkish side of the border as Kurdish fighters battled Daesh militants in a cluster of villages called Siftek. The sound of sporadic artillery and gunfire echoed around the hills.
‘Heavy weapons’
The Kurds appeared to be firing mortars from the back of a truck into a village where Daesh had taken up positions.
“Because of the bombing in Raqqa, Daesh has taken all of their weapons and brought them here. There are more and more Daesh fighters in the last two days, they have brought all their forces here,” said Ahmad Hassan, 60, a Syrian Kurd who fled to Turkey with his family.
“They have heavy weapons. We are running away from them. YPG haven’t got heavy weapons. That’s why we need help,” he said, referring to the main Kurdish armed group.
Idris Nassan, deputy minister for foreign affairs in a Kurdish administration controlling the Kobane area, said Daesh remained around 15km from the town in the east and west but had advanced in the south to within 10km after heavy clashes with Kurdish forces.
“Now I hear the noise of mortars in the south,” he said by telephone. “Daesh gathered heavy forces there. So did the YPG but Daesh pushed them back.”
