Mursitpinar, Turkey: Kurdish militia fought off a fresh assault by Daesh on a key Syrian town early Monday, after one desperate woman defender carried out a suicide attack against the militants.
Daesh militants attempted to storm the town of Ain Al Arab, also known as Kobani in Kurdish, on the Turkish border from both east and west of a strategic hill to the south, but Kurdish fighters repulsed the attack, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
A Syrian Kurdish official inside Ain Al Arab said the town had come under heavy bombardment by the militants and there had been fierce clashes as the Kurdish fighters fought off the assault.
Daesh fighters seized part of Mishtenur Hill, which overlooks Ain Al Arab, late on Saturday, but US-led air strikes slowed their advance.
The Syrian Kurdish official said Daesh fighters were just one kilometre (less than a mile) from the town and that air strikes alone were not enough to stop them.
Idris Nahsen complained there was no coordination between coalition commanders and Kurdish fighters on the ground.
In a sign of the Kurdish defenders’ mounting desperation, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at an Daesh position east of Ain Al Arab on Sunday, the Observatory said.
It was the first reported instance of a female Kurdish fighter employing a tactic often used by the militants, said the Britain-based watchdog, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria.
The Kurdish official confirmed the suicide bombing but was non-committal about whether there would be more.
“I don’t know. It is related to the situation. We don’t have this strategy,” Nahsen said.
Sunday’s fighting around Ain Al Arab killed at least 19 Kurdish fighters and 27 Daesh militants, the Observatory said.
Under assault by Daesh for nearly three weeks, the town has become a crucial battleground in the international fight against the militants. Daesh began its advance on Ain Al Arab on September 16, seeking to cement its grip over a long stretch of the Syria-Turkey border.
Mass exodus
The offensive prompted a mass exodus from the town and surrounding countryside, with some 186,000 people fleeing into Turkey.
One mortar round hit a house on Turkish territory just a few kilometres (miles) from Ain Al Arab on Sunday, wounding five people, medical sources said.
The source of the fire was unclear, but residents of two small border villages were ordered evacuated as a precaution.
The Turkish parliament last week authorised the government to join the campaign, but so far no plans for military action have been announced, to the dismay of Turkey’s own large Kurdish minority.
Daesh has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq, declaring a “caliphate” in June and imposing its harsh interpretation of Islamic law.
The group has been accused of carrying out widespread atrocities including mass executions, abductions, torture and forcing women into slavery.
After first launching strikes against Daesh in Iraq in August, Washington has built a coalition of allies to wage an air campaign against the group.
In Iraq, the pace of the coalition air campaign against Daesh picked up on Sunday with the first strike by Belgium and maiden combat sorties by Australia and The Netherlands.
Britain, France and Denmark have also committed aircraft to the campaign against Daesh in Iraq, where a fightback by Kurdish forces in the north has made slow progress while federal troops have come under renewed assault by the militants west of Baghdad.
