US says the appointment of ministers after delay was a positive step in the fightback against IS
Mursitpinar (Turkey) : The Islamic State group was taking heavy losses in the Syrian battleground of Kobane as Iraqi forces fought the jihadists buoyed by US backing for top government security appointments. US Secretary of State John Kerry said the appointment of defence and interior ministers after weeks of delay was a “very positive step forward” in the fightback against IS in Iraq, which Washington has made its priority.
But US-led warplanes kept up their strikes on the jihadists around Kobane on Syria’s northern border with Turkey, helping the town’s Kurdish defenders to repulse a new attempt to cut their supply lines. The Kurdish fighters, who have been under IS assault for more than a month, weathered fierce street fighting and at least two jihadist suicide bombings but the front line remained unchanged on Sunday, a Kurdish official said.
“(IS) brought in reinforcements… and attacked hard,” Idris Nassen told AFP by telephone. “But thanks to air strikes and (the Kurdish fighters’) response, they did not make any progress.”
The IS fighters suffered heavy losses in their effort to seal the battle for the town, which has become a key prize as it is being fought under the gaze of the world’s press massed just over the border in Turkey. From Saturday into Sunday morning, a total of 31 jihadists died in the battle, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Coalition air strikes killed 15, while another 16 died in the ground fighting, including two suicide bombers. The Kurdish lost seven fighters, said the Britain-based Observatory.
On Friday, IS lost 35 of its fighters while the Kurds lost three. Medics and witnesses reported a steady flow of bodies from the Kobane fighting arriving at an IS-controlled hospital further east, the Observatory said.
Turkey rejects arming Kurds
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected calls for Turkey to arm the main Kurdish party in Syria, describing the group as a terrorist organisation. Erdogan said the Democratic Union Party (PYD) was the same as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a 30-year insurgency for self-rule in southeastern Turkey.
The armed wing of the PYD, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), has been engaged in heavy fighting in recent weeks with the Islamic State group for control of the northern Syrian town of Kobane. “There has been talk of arming the PYD to form a front here against the Islamic State. For us, the PYD is the same as the PKK, it’s a terrorist organisation,” Erdogan said aboard a plane returning from Afghanistan. “It would be very, very wrong to expect us to openly say ‘yes’ to our NATO ally America to give this kind of support. To expect something like this from us is impossible,” he was quoted as saying by the state-run Anatolia news agency. Ankara is reluctant to arm Kurds fearing the creation of an effective Kurdish fighting force on its border.