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Militants from the Islamic State (IS) launched a new offensive in the eastern part of Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobane after withdrawing from parts of the town following US-led air strikes.
“There are fierce clashes underway in the east of Ain al-Arab (Kobane) after the Islamic State launched an offensive to retake the areas it lost control of”, Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said.
He also said that at least three Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters were killed on Wednesday, along with an unknown number of IS extremists. The new assault came after IS militants had withdrawn from the southwestern and eastern edges of Kobane, the Observatory said.After pulling out, the militants were present in eastern parts and in the southern edges of the town, but were no longer in the western front, Rahman added.
“(It came after) their rear positions were hit in strikes, causing casualties and damaging at least four of their vehicles”, Rahman said.
The monitoring group also said that its latest death toll of IS militants killed in Kobane stands at 32, with 20 of them killed by the coalition’s air strikes. At least eight militiamen from the YPG were killed in clashes on Tuesday, the Observatory said.
IS militants had entered Kobane on Monday, after almost three weeks of battles around the town on the Turkey-Syria border.
On Wednesday, the US military said that American and other coalition aircraft kept up their bombing raids on IS extremists near Kobane and carried out six attacks to help Kurdish forces defending the town. Coalition bombers, drones and fighter jets hit the IS over a 24-hour period with four strikes to the south of the town and destroyed an artillery piece, an armored personnel carrier and three other vehicles, Central Command said.