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 Fighting between the Kurdish YPG militia and Islamic State
fighters who infiltrated the town at the Turkish border on Thursday
continued into a second day, said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
A separate Islamic State attack on government-held areas of the
northeastern city of Hasaka was reported to have forced 60,000
people to flee their homes, the United Nations said, warning that up
to 200,000 people may eventually try to flee.
The twin attacks launched in the early hours of Thursday marked an
Islamic State attempt to go back on the offensive after Kurdish-led
forces, supported by U.S.-led air strikes, advanced to within 50 km
(30 miles) of Raqqa city, the de facto capital of its self-declared
"caliphate".
In both cases, Islamic State has picked targets where it is
complicated for the U.S.-led alliance to provide air support. In
Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, aerial bombardment risks civilian
casualties in residential areas targeted in the attack.
The U.S.-led alliance has meanwhile avoided bombing Islamic State
targets in areas controlled by President Bashar al-Assad, such as
government-held Hasaka - one of his last footholds in the northeast.
 The United States and its European and Arab allies have been
carrying out air strikes on Islamic State since last year in an
effort to roll back the group that has seized wide areas of Syria
and Iraq. Washington has ruled out cooperation with Assad.
The attack on the predominantly Kurdish town of Kobani and the
nearby village of Brakh Bootan marked the biggest single massacre of
civilians by Islamic State since it killed hundreds of members of
the Sunni Sheitaat tribe in eastern Syria last year, the
Observatory's Abdulrahman said.
The assault included at least three suicide car bombs. The dead
included the elderly, women and children, Abdulrahman said.
The Islamic State fighters were reported to number in the low dozens
and entered the town in five cars disguised as members of the YPG
and Syrian rebel groups.
Fighting was ongoing inside the town, Abdulrahman said.
Kobani was the site of one of the biggest battles against Islamic
State in 2014. The Kurdish forces eventually drove the militants out
of the town in January with the help of U.S. air strikes and Iraqi
Kurdish fighters after months of fighting.
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Islamic State advanced rapidly last month, seizing cities in Syria
and Iraq. But recent Kurdish advances in Syria shifted the momentum
once more. Islamic State fighters have often adopted a tactic of
attacking elsewhere when they lose ground.
The group wrested control of at least one district of Hasaka city in
its raid there on Thursday. The city is divided into zones run
separately by the Syrian government and the Kurdish administration
that controls the YPG.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said an
estimated 50,000 people had been displaced within Hasaka city while
10,000 had left northwards toward Amuda town, close to the Turkish
border.
Speaking to Syrian state TV, the governor of Hasaka said the city
was "safe and secure". He urged people to return home.
But the Observatory said fighting continued in the city. Government
forces were carrying out air strikes targeting areas south of Hasaka
controlled by Islamic State, it added.
Assad has since late March lost additional areas of northwestern,
southern and central Syria to a patchwork of armed groups, including
Islamic State, other jihadists, and rebels who profess a more
secular vision for Syria.
The government has meanwhile focused on shoring up control over the
main population centers of the west, including Damascus, with
crucial military support from the Iranian-backed Lebanese group,
Hezbollah.
(Additional reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Tom Perry and Peter
Graff)
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