A steady flow of bodies and ambulances crossed the Turkish border on Wednesday as Kurdish fighters held out against the Islamic State inside the beleaguered northern Syrian town of Kobane.
At least three heavy explosions shook the town during the day, two of them apparently airstrikes by a US-led coalition, which has belatedly come to the aid of the surrounded Kurds.
An opposition monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said coalition airstrikes had killed 45 Islamic State fighters since they began “in earnest” on Monday night.
Wednesday’s third explosion was a suicide attack by an Islamic State fighter on the Kurdish police headquarters in the town. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) said they had destroyed his explosive-laden truck before it reached its target.
Speaking on the phone from inside Kobane as machinegun fire echoed in the background, Kurdish activist Farhad al-Shami said that fierce battles were taking place in the east of the town.
“Islamic State fighters have launched a wide-scale attack to stretch their control on the whole [eastern] area of Kani Araban,” he told dpa.
At the border village of Mursitpinar, a Kurdish fighter who had crossed into Turkey said the situation was “far worse than people think.”
“We have lost many fighters. Many people are injured and are still inside, they haven’t been able to get out,” said the fighter, who declined to give his name.
An ambulance driver said that more and more injured Kurdish fighters were appearing at the border, and there were not enough ambulances to bring them to hospital.
Refugees crossing into Turkey told dpa that the town and surrounding villages were all but empty of inhabitants, most of whom had fled to the border as the jihadists closed in.
The fighter said Islamic State militants had moved even closer to the centre of the beleaguered town, which is at the heart of a Kurdish enclave that has been almost entirely overrun in the three-week offensive.
Outside a morgue in the nearby Turkish town of Suruc, a crowd gathered chanting slogans of the YPG and the linked Turkish Kurdish rebel force, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Family members wept as they waited for the bodies of slain fighters to be released.
The coffins, draped with red PKK flags, were carried to a graveyard amid chants of “The martyrs will never die” and “Revenge”.
The imminent fall of Kobane, the smallest of three Kurdish-held areas which were until recently an oasis of relative safety in Syria’s civil war, has led to an angry reaction among Turkish Kurds.
At least 19 people were killed and many more injured Tuesday and Wednesday at protests in south-eastern Turkey, local media reported.
Most of the victims were killed in clashes between PKK supporters and Islamists overnight in the Kurdish province of Diyarbakir, where local authorities said 10 people had died.
The Turkish army had stationed tanks in Diyarbakir, news agency Anadolu reported. An evening curfew for Wednesday night into Thursday had been imposed there and in other south-eastern provinces, according to Hurrieyet Daily News.
Kurdish leader Salih Muslim said the YPG was waiting for Turkey to allow them to bring reinforcements from two larger Kurdish-controlled areas in Syria.
“Our forces are waiting in Afrin and Cizre. They [Turkish officials] told me that Turkey would allow them, but that has not happened yet,” Muslim told Hurriyet Daily News.
US Secretary of State John Kerry stressed in Washington that the US is “deeply concerned” about the Islamic State siege of Kobane but remains focused on the broader objective of striking the group’s ability to operate. His remarks came amid suggestions a day earlier by US officials that Kobane was not of major concern to the US military effort.
“We’re deeply concerned about the people of Kobane, who are battling against ISIL terrorists,” Kerry said after holding talks with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
“But as horrific as it is to watch in real time what’s happening in Kobane, it’s also important to remember you have to step back and understand the strategic objective and where we have begun over the course of the last weeks,” he said, noting that the US is focused on hitting Islamic State’s command and control centres across Syria and Iraq.
Kerry also pointed to the need for Turkey to take a more active role amid growing US frustration that it has been reluctant to engage Islamic State militants in the Kobane area.
He said he expected US officials meeting with Turkish authorities in Ankara on Thursday and Friday would determine how Turkey could be involved now that Turkish hostages being held by Islamic State had been freed.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was also due to visit Turkey on Thursday.
GNA
