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 Kobani has become a test of the U.S.-led coalition's ability to
halt the advance of the Sunni Muslim insurgents. The border town is
one of few areas in Syria where it can co-ordinate air strikes with
operations by an effective ground force.
The arrival of the Iraqi Kurd peshmerga or "those who face death",
with armored vehicles and artillery, has enabled them to shell
Islamic State positions around Kobani and take back some villages.
But the front lines in the town itself are little changed, its
eastern part still controlled by the insurgents, and the west still
largely held by the main Syrian Kurdish armed group, the YPG, and
allied fighters.
"There is no change at all in Kobani as a result of the peshmerga.
Maybe one or two streets are gained then lost, back and forth," said
Rami Abdulrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights, which monitors the war.
"ISIS (Islamic State) posts are well entrenched in Kobani city, and
the Kurds say they need more heavy weaponry to make a dent ... There
also needs to be better co-ordination between the Kurdish units and
coalition air forces," he said, adding that Islamic State suicide
attacks were also proving effective.
The peshmerga entered Kobani in more than a dozen trucks and jeeps
last Friday from Turkey, cheering and making victory signs.
 They were given a heroes' welcome by Turkish Kurds and Syrian
Kurdish refugees, angry at Turkey's refusal to send in its own
troops and optimistic, as they lined the streets cloaked in Kurdish
flags, that the peshmerga would turn the tide.
The Kurdistan Regional Government, which runs a semi-autonomous
region in northern Iraq, has made clear from the outset that its
peshmerga fighters, numbering around 150, would not engage in direct
combat in Kobani but rather provide artillery support to Syrian
Kurds.
"Of course the presence of the peshmerga has been helpful because
they’re shelling ISIS positions, destroying their fighters and
weapons," Idris Nassan, a local official in Kobani, said by
telephone.
"Because of the peshmerga shelling we've stopped ISIS advances in
the western rural areas as well as the east and southeastern front
line of the city," he told Reuters.
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HEAVY WEAPONS
There was intense fighting in the days after their arrival, with
heavy shelling and almost continuous gunfire as peshmerga forces and
fighters from Syria's moderate rebel ranks helped the YPG push the
Islamists out of some surrounding villages.
Nassan said that "constant shelling" by peshmerga forces had taken
away some of Islamic State's ability to attack and that there had
been good co-ordination between the Kurdish units and the Free
Syrian Army, the moderate rebel fighters.
A Reuters correspondent on the border said the intensity of the
shelling had died down since then, and there had been no obvious
change in the frontlines in the town itself.
"ISIS brings new fighters and supplies all the time, so we need new
fighters and supplies too," Nassan said, adding Islamic State
fighters had seized nine tanks in an attack on the Sha'ar gas field
in central Syria which they were bringing to Kobani.
"So we need more coordination with coalition forces and more heavy
weaponry, specifically anti-tank weapons and other weapons to
counter their cannons, rockets and mortars," he said.
The Sha'ar gas field, to the east of the city of Homs, has changed
hands four times since July when Islamic State fighters first seized
it. The Observatory said Syrian government forces retook it on
Thursday.
Despite having limited strategic significance, Kobani has become a
powerful symbol in the battle against the hardline Sunni Muslim
insurgents who have captured large expanses of Iraq and Syria and
declared an Islamic "caliphate".
The battle has raged in full view of the Turkish frontier, and
Turkey's reluctance to help defend the town sparked riots among
Turkish Kurds last month in which 40 people died.
(Additional reporting by Alexander Dziadosz in Beirut; Writing by
Nick Tattersall; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
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