A Kurdish activist in
Kobani said late Friday he saw more than 100 Kurdish fighters known as
Peshmerga cross over the Turkish border with their vehicles to the
embattled city's west, near a key hill called Tal Shair.
Another witness said he
saw a large convoy of armed vehicles pass his house, headed toward the
unofficial border crossing on the city's western side Friday evening.
They were accompanied by Turkish military, as they drove on the Turkish
side, he said.
This is the largest
reported crossing of reinforcements to help the the Syrian Kurds
defending the besieged Kobani. It's unclear whether more help is on the
way.
ISIS, the Sunni Muslim
extremist militant group, has been fighting to take Kobani for about six
weeks, hoping to add it to the territory it already captured in parts
of Syria and Iraq for what it calls its new independent Islamic nation.
Word of the Peshmerga's
arrival follows complaints from Syrian Kurds, accusing Turkey of causing
delays in the fighters' arrival. The Peshmerga were supoosed to arrive
Thursday night or Friday morning, according to Polat Can, spokesman for
Syrian Kurdish fighters, part of the People's Protection Units, or YPG.
"We do not know why it is delayed. We think the delay is caused by Turkey," Can said Friday morning.
"ISIS has been focusing
its attacks on the border gate for the past five days to prevent
Peshmerga and other support from coming, but they have not made
progress. We have taken back some areas," Can added.
Syria has been embroiled
in a three-year civil war, with government troops battling ISIS and
other rebels elsewhere, leaving Kobani's ethnic Kurds to defend the
city, with U.S. airstrikes -- part of a larger U.S.-led coalition effort
against ISIS in the region -- intermittently taking out ISIS targets in
the area.
Meantime, the airstrikes
against those targets continued Thursday and Friday as part of
Operation Inherent Resolve with four more carried out in Syria and Iraq,
Central Command said in a Facebook post.
"Separately, U.S. and
partner nation military forces conducted four airstrikes in Iraq
Thursday and today using fighter and remotely piloted aircraft against
ISIL terrorists," Central Command said.
Source:CNN
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