IS fighters seize villages in Syria using tanks
Islamic State (IS) fighters backed by tanks have captured 16 Kurdish villages over the past 24 hours in northern Syria near the Turkish border, prompting civilians to flee their homes amid fears of retribution by the extremists sweeping through the area, activists said.
For more than a year, IS and Kurdish militias have been locked in a fierce fight in several pockets of northern Syria where large Kurdish populations reside. The clashes are but one aspect of Syria’s broader civil war – a multi-layered conflict that the UN says has killed more than 190,000.
IS militants have taken over the 16 Kurdish villages in Syria’s northern Kurdish region of Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab, since Wednesday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
It said there were casualties on both sides, but that Kurdish civilians were fleeing their villages for fear that IS group fighters “will commit massacres against civilians”.
Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for Syria’s powerful Kurdish Democratic Union Party, said the Kurdish fighters withdrew or lost up to 20 villages in the Kobani region and evacuated civilians with them.
“The battles that are taking place in Kobani are the most violent,” Mr Khalil said, adding that IS fighters were using tanks in their offensive. Mr Khalil called on Kurds around the world to come to Syria to defend Kobani.
Like many fronts of Syria’s civil war, momentum in the fight between the extremists and the Kurds has swung back and forth. Earlier this week, for example, Kurdish fighters captured 14 villages from IS in other parts of Syria. Now, the Kurds have been forced out of villages elsewhere.
Still, the retreat marked a setback for the battle-hardened Kurdish force known as the People’s Protection Units. The militia, which is known by the initials YPK, has been perhaps the most successful fighting force battling IS, which has routed Iraqi and Syrian government forces. Last month, the YPK crossed the border into Iraq and opened a safe passage for members of the ancient Yazidi minority who were attacked by IS fighters.
The fighting around Kobani is part of IS’s wider battle in Syria as the extremists look to seize control of the few areas in the north east still outside of their hands.
The Syrian government, meanwhile, has begun targeting the group with greater frequency since the militants overran much of northern and western Iraq. Before that, president Bashar Assad has largely left the group alone, instead focusing his firepower on more moderate rebel brigades.
On Thursday, government helicopter gunships attacked the northern town of al-Bab, which is controlled by IS, killing at least a dozen people, the Local Co-ordination Committees activist group said. It said a helicopter dropped a barrel packed with explosives on a bakery.
The Observatory also reported the air strike, but said at least 17 were killed. It warned that the number could rise because some of the wounded are in critical conditions.
The US has been conducting air strikes against IS fighters in Iraq since early August. President Barack Obama last week authorised strikes against the group in Syria as well, and his administration is currently trying to cobble together an international coalition to go after the group. The US is already flying reconnaissance missions over Syria.
Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said activists saw drones flying over areas held by IS, including the towns of Manbij and Maskaneh. He added that it is not clear whether the drones were American.
