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Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus on Monday said that around 130,000 Syrians have flooded across the border in Turkey as Kurdish soldiers continued battling the Islamic State (IS) in their attempts to capture the strategically located town of Ain al-Arab.
A spokesman for the IS in a statement issued by the group urged Muslims all over the world to kill citizens from nations taking part in the US-led coalition against it. Fighters from the IS have been advancing towards the town of Ain al-Arab for almost a week. The town, also known by Kobane to the Kurds, is the third largest Kurdish town in Syria.
UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday that Kurdish forces had ramped up their efforts against the IS.
Kurdish activists and Syrian opposition officials have called for intervention from the US-led coalition against the IS, but so far, there have been no signs of the US expanding its aerial campaign in the region.
The IS began advancing towards Kobane on Tuesday night, causing a mass exodus of Syrians to Turkey. Ankara has allowed fleeing Syrians Kurds to enter Turkey, with the number of Syrians in Turkey now standing at over 130,000, Kurtulmus said.
According to sources, three crossings had been opened on Monday for the new arrivals; however, a different source from the Turkish emergencies directorate said that only the Mursitpinar crossing was opened. According to some of the arriving refugees, the terror of IS extremists capturing their villages had forced them to flee. Reportedly, IS extremists had threatened to kill Kurds of all ages in the captured towns.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had on Monday said that the IS had captured at least 64 villages and killed at least 16 Syrian Kurds.
However, the Observatory’s director Rami Abdel Rahman said that Kurdish fighters backed by Syrians of Arab ethnicity had intensified their attacks against the extremists, killing 21 IS fighters overnight.
“The progression on the eastern and southern fronts has slowed because of heavy fighting. The Kurdish fighters have intensified their attacks since the departure of most of the civilians, and that has obstructed IS from moving further”, he said.
