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 The prospect that the town on the Turkish border could fall to
militants who have besieged it for three weeks has increased
pressure on Turkey, with the strongest army in the region, to join
an international coalition to fight against Islamic State.
From across the nearby Turkish border two Islamic State flags could
be seen flying over the eastern side of Kobani. Two air strikes hit
the area and sporadic gunfire could be heard.
Islamic State fighters were using heavy weapons and shells to hit
Kobani, senior Kurdish official Asya Abdullah told Reuters from
inside the town.
“Yesterday there was a violent clash. We have fought hard to keep
them out of the town,” she said by telephone. “The clashes are not
in the whole of Kobani, but in specific areas, on the outskirts and
towards the center.”
Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot, has ramped up its offensive in
recent days against the mainly Kurdish border town, despite being
targeted by U.S.-led coalition led air strikes aimed at halting its
progress.
The group wants to take Kobani to consolidate a dramatic sweep
across northern Iraq and Syria, in the name of an absolutist version
of Sunni Islam, that has sent shockwaves through the Middle East.
"There were clashes overnight. Not heavy but ISIS is going forward
from the southwest. They have crossed into Kobani and control some
buildings in the city there," said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the
conflict with a network on the ground. ISIS is a former name for
Islamic State.
"They are about 50 meters inside the southwest of the city,"
Abdulrahman said.
An estimated 180,000 people have fled into Turkey from the Kobani
region following the Islamic State advance. More than 2,000 Syrian
Kurds including women and children were evacuated from the town
after the latest fighting, a member of the Kurdish Democratic Union
Party (PYD) said on Monday.
Before the offensive, Kobani, known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, was
home to refugees from the civil war which pits rebels against
President Bashar al-Assad and has deteriorated into hundreds of
localized battles between different factions.
The most powerful of the myriad militias fighting against Assad,
Islamic State has boosted its forces with foreign fighters and
defectors from other rebel groups. It gained additional heavy
weaponry after its fighters swept through northern Iraq in June,
seizing arms from the fleeing Iraqi army.
The group released a video showing dozens of men said to be from
Ahrar al-Sham, a rival Islamist group which has clashed with it in
the past, pledging allegiance to its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
SITE monitoring service said on Monday.
U.S. DEPLOYS APACHES
The United States has been bombing Islamic State positions in Iraq
since August and extended the campaign to Syria in September. Arab
states have joined both campaigns, while other Western countries are
participating in Iraq but not Syria.
Two months in to the U.S. campaign, the U.S. military has added a
new weapon to its arsenal in Iraq, using Apache helicopters for the
first time, U.S. officials said on Monday.
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Army Major Curtis Kellogg said Baghdad had asked for helicopter
support near Fallujah to push back militants west of the capital
Baghdad. The low-flying helicopters give the U.S. military greater
capacity to identify individual targets and provide close air
support to Iraqi troops in combat, suggesting close cooperation with
forces on the ground. But they also expose U.S. troops to far
greater risk from ground fire.
Turkey, a NATO member which shares a 900 kilometer (500 mile) border
with Syria and has the most powerful military in the area, has so
far refrained from joining the campaign, but the plight of Kobani
has increased pressure to act.
Turkey says the scope of the campaign in Syria should be broadened
to seek to remove Assad from power. It has sought a no-fly zone in
northern Syria, which would require the coalition to take on Assad's
air force as well as Islamic State, a move Washington has not agreed
to.
“We are ready to do everything if there is a clear strategy and if
we can be sure that our border can be protected after (Islamic State
is gone)," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in an interview with
CNN International.
"We don't want the regime anymore on our border pushing people
towards Turkey. We don't want other terrorist organizations ... If
Assad stays in Damascus with this brutal policy, if (Islamic State)
goes another radical organization may come."
The brother of a British aid worker who was beheaded by Islamic
State said Britain should put troops on the ground in the Middle
East to fight against the militants.
"We need to send ground troops in or forces in to find out where
these monsters are and bring them to justice," said Reg Henning,
whose 47-year-old brother Alan was killed last week. "The sooner we
do it, the sooner the killing stops." "Go and find them, bring them
to justice, bring them over here, let us try them," he was quoted as
saying on the BBC website.
Alan Henning's killing has been condemned by Western leaders and
British Muslim groups alike. He was the fourth Western hostage
executed by Islamic State fighters since the United States launched
strikes on the group in Iraq in August.
(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul, William Maclean
in Dubai, David Alexander and Phil Stewart in Washington and Costas
Pitas in London; Editing by Peter Graff)
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