US-led air strikes hit Islamic State positions around the Syrian border town of Kobane on Friday in an apparent bid to pave the way for heavily-armed Kurdish peshmerga forces to enter from neighboring Turkey.
The predominantly Kurdish town, besieged for more than 40 days, has become the focus of a global war against the Sunni Muslim insurgents, who have captured expanses of Iraq and Syria and declared an Islamic “caliphate” straddling the two.
Its fighters have slaughtered or driven away Shi’ite Muslims, Christians and other communities who do not share their ultra-radical brand of Sunni Islam. They executed at least 220 Iraqis in retaliation against opposition to their takeover of territory west of Baghdad this week.
The siege of Kobane – known in Arabic as Ayn al-Arab – has turned into a test of the US-led coalition’s ability to stop Islamic State’s advance, with weeks of air strikes so far failing to break the insurgents’ stranglehold.
Kobane’s defenders, outgunned by the militants, are hoping the arrival of peshmerga forces from Iraqi Kurdistan with badly-needed weapons including cannon and truck-mounted machine-guns will help them turn the tide.
An advance guard of 10 peshmerga briefly entered Kobane on Thursday to discuss a joint strategy with leaders of the YPG, the main Syrian Kurdish armed group defending the town.
Armored vehicles came and went from a former cotton processing warehouse near the Turkish border town of Suruc on Friday, where the wider contingent of around 150 peshmerga fighters were preparing for their deployment.
Tankers from the convoy emerged from the compound, guarded by Turkish security forces, to fill up at a local fuel station.
“For the past 15 days, Islamic State has been attacking to try to take control of the border gate, including with car bombs. But we are resisting,” said Enver Muslim, the top administrative official in the Kobane district.
“While the peshmerga convoy passes, US jets will be overhead and warplanes from the coalition ... will be flying over Kobane to ensure their security,” he told Reuters by phone.
Around 200 fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) - an umbrella term for the dozens of armed groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - have also entered Kobane from Turkey to support the struggle against Islamic State.
Air cover
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday preliminary information indicated that at least 21 Islamic State members were killed in coalition air strikes around Kobane, including a Danish jihadist.
A local journalist in the town said there had been several air strikes overnight and a Reuters correspondent saw one early on Friday to the east of Kobane.
It is unclear whether the small but heavily armed contingent will be enough to swing the battle, but the deployment is a potent display of unity between Kurdish groups that more often seek to undermine each other.
