Isis defies coalition air strikes in battle for town on Syria-Turkey border

Pressure piles on Ankara as US-led onslaught drives extremists towards predominantly Kurdish town of Kobani

A Syrian Kurdish refugee carries her belongings after crossing into Turkey from the Syrian border town of Kobani. Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters

Thursday 2 October 2014 

Islamic State (Isis) insurgents have tightened their grip on a Syrian border town, despite a flurry of coalition air strikes, sending thousands more Kurdish refugees into Turkey and dragging Ankara deeper into the conflict.

Kurdish militants warned that peace talks with the Turkish state would be halted if Islamist insurgents were allowed to carry out a massacre in the predominantly Kurdish town of Kobani.

Isis fighters advanced to within a few miles of the town after taking control of hundreds of nearby villages in recent weeks. The extremists beheaded residents in an attempt to terrorise them into submission.

In neighbouring Iraq, the insurgents have carried out mass executions, abducted women and girls as sex slaves, and used children as fighters in violations that might amount to war crimes, the UN said.

By Thursday morning, the extremists had seized most of the western Iraqi town of Hit in Anbar province – where they control many surrounding towns – launching the assault with three suicide car bombs.

US-led forces, which have been bombing Isis targets in Syria and Iraq for the past week, hit a village near Kobani on Wednesday. Strikes were also reported further south overnight, according to Kurdish sources in the town. But the onslaught seemed to do little to stop the Islamists’ advance.

“We left because we realised it was only going to get worse,” said Leyla, 37, a Syrian arriving at the Yumurtalik border with her six children. For 10 days she had waited in a field for the clashes to subside. They did not. “We will go back tomorrow if Islamic State leaves,” she said. “I don’t want to be here; I had never even imagined Turkey in my dreams before this.”

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said Isis militants were clashing with Kurdish fighters hundreds of metres from Kobani, raising fears they would enter the town “at any moment”.

About 20 explosions were heard overnight near the Tishrin dam and the town of Manbij, about 30 miles south of Kobani. The blasts were thought to have been coalition missile strikes, the Observatory said.

Asya Abdullah, a senior official in Syria’s dominant Kurdish political party, the Democratic Union party, said there had been clashes to the east, west and south of Kobani and that Isis had advanced on all fronts.

“If they want to prevent a massacre, the coalition must act much more comprehensively,” she said, adding that air strikes elsewhere in Syria had pushed Isis fighters towards the border town. “We’ve been fighting Isis with all our strength for 18 days to save Kobani. We will continue the resistance … It’s civilians who will die if Kobani falls. But we will protect them.”

Turkey’s parliament will vote on a motion on Thursday which would allow the government to authorise cross-border military incursions against Isis fighters in Syria and Iraq, and allow coalition forces to use Turkish territory.

The Turkish army said it would defend the tomb of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman empire, in a Turkish enclave in northern Syria.