Beirut: Militants from Daesh withdrew from some parts of the embattled Syrian town of Kobani overnight after air strikes by a US-led coalition, a monitor said on Wednesday.
Rami Abdul Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said “fighters from [Daesh] withdrew overnight from several areas in the east of Ain Al Arab [Kobani] and the southwestern edges.”
After the pullback, the group’s fighters were present in eastern parts of the strategic town and its southern edges, but were no longer inside on the western front, Abdul Rahman said.
He said the move came after “their rear positions were hit in strikes, causing casualties and damaging at least four of their vehicles.”
Daesh fighters entered Kobani, also known as Ain Al Arab, on Monday night, after nearly three weeks of fighting around the town on the Syria-Turkey border.
On Tuesday, fighting raged in the east, west and south of Kobani, which is Syria’s third biggest Kurdish town, and a US-led coalition fighting Daesh carried out multiple air strikes around the town.
Mustafa Ebdi, a Kurdish journalist and activist from Kobani, wrote on his Facebook page that “the streets of the Maqtala neighbourhood in southeastern Kobani are full of the bodies of Daesh fighters”.
But he added that hundreds of civilians remained in the town and “the humanitarian situation is difficult and people need food and water.”
Daesh began its advance on Kobani on September 16, quickly sweeping through the surrounding countryside and prompting an estimated 186,000 people to flee the region across the border into Turkey.
According to the Observatory, at least 412 people have been killed in the fighting, though the group said it believes the true toll could be twice as high.
