A Kurdish female suicide bomber was among the dead as Kurds defending a Syrian town near the Turkish border clashed with the Islamic State group on Monday.
Islamic State militants raised their flag on a building on the eastern outskirts of the border town of Kobani on Monday after an assault of almost three weeks, but the town's Kurdish defenders said they had not reached the city centre.
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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a statement from the Kurdish force known as the People's Protection Units, or YPK, said more than 45 fighters on both sides were killed Sunday near Kobani, including a Kurdish female fighter who blew herself up, killing several jihadists.
(Who are Islamic State? Get caught up with The Globe's primer)
SUICIDE BOMBING: KURDISH ATTACKER IDENTIFIED
The Observatory's chief Rami Abdurrahman said Monday that one of the attacks against Islamic State group the day earlier was carried out by a female Kurdish fighter who blew herself up, killing 10 jihadists.
The YPK statement identified the suicide attacker as Deilar Kanj Khamis, better known by her military name, Arin Mirkan.
Khamis was a member of a YPK branch known as the Women's Protection Units, or YPG. The force has more than 10,000 female fighters who have played a major role in the battles against the Islamic State group, Haj Mansour said.
Nasser Haj Mansour, a defence official in Syria's Kurdish region, said Kurdish fighters withdrew from a position on the strategic hill of Mashta Nour near Kobani. Khamis stayed behind, and as the Islamic State fighters moved in she attacked them with gunfire and grenades, eventually blowing herself up. The Kurds then recaptured the position.
'If necessary, all our female and male fighters will become Arin. The attacks by mercenaries of Daesh against Kobani will not be allowed to achieve their goals,' the YPK statement said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.
KOBANI: UNDER SIEGE FOR A MONTH
A black flag belonging to Islamic State was visible from across the Turkish border atop a four-story building close to the scene of some of the most intense clashes in recent days. Local sources inside Kobani told Reuters that the group had planted its flag but said that Kurdish forces had repelled their advances so far.
The radical al-Qaeda offshoot has been battling to seize the predominantly Kurdish town after taking over large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq in recent months. Air strikes by American and Gulf state warplanes have failed to halt the advance of the Islamists, who have besieged the town from three sides and pounded it with heavy artillery.
The YPK said in a statement that there were 50 points of clashes around Kobani on Sunday, adding that 74 Islamic State fighters as well as 15 Kurdish gunmen were killed. The Observatory said 27 jihadists and 19 Kurds were killed in the battles, making it one of the deadliest days since the latest round of fighting began three weeks ago.
Islamic State wants to take Kobani to consolidate a dramatic sweep across northern Iraq and Syria, in the name of an absolutist version of Sunni Islam, that has sent shockwaves through the Middle East.
'If they enter Kobani, it will be a graveyard for us and for them. We will not let them enter Kobani as long as we live,' Esmat al-Sheik, head of the Kobani Defense Authority, said by telephone earlier on Monday. 'We either win or die. We will resist to the end.'
SYRIA: KURDISH FORCES OVEREXTENDED
Syrian Kurdish forces have long been among the most effective adversaries of the Islamic State group, keeping it out of their enclave in northeastern Syria even as the extremists routed the armed forces of both Syria and neighbouring Iraq in recent months.
But in recent weeks the overstretched Kurds have struggled to counter the jihadists, who have looted heavy arms and vehicles from captured Syrian and Iraqi army bases.
'They are using tanks, artillery and all kinds of weapons they captured in Iraq and Syria,' said Haj Mansour, referring to Islamic State.
LEBANON: HEZBOLLAH FIGHTERS KILLED IN CLASH WITH AL-QAEDA GROUP
Ten fighters from Lebanon's Shia Hezbollah group were killed in clashes with fighters from al-Qaeda's Syrian wing in eastern Lebanon on Sunday, a source close to the group said on Monday.
The death toll was one of the highest the group has suffered in a single action since it decided last year to fight alongside the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Hezbollah pushed back a major offensive on Sunday by hundreds of fighters from the Nusra Front who attacked several bases of the group along a mountainous range close to the border, the latest spillover of violence from Syria's civil war. Sources said dozens of Nusra fighters were also killed.
Sunday's two-hour battle, in which both sides used mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, is one of the deadliest fought in Lebanon between the Shia group and Syrian insurgents.
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Posted by Unknown on Monday, October 6, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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