MURSITPINAR, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s president says the Islamic State group is about to capture the Syrian border town of Kobani.
Islamic State fighters are using tanks and heavy weapons looted from army bases they captured in Iraq and Syria. As a result, the Kurdish forces are outgunned, and they’re struggling to repel the extremists with limited aid from U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.
The U.S.-led coalition has launched several airstrikes over the past two weeks near Kobani in a bid to help Kurdish forces defend the town, but the sorties appear to have done little to slow the Islamic State group’s advance.
The town sits across the border from Turkey, and Turkish tanks and other ground forces have been stationed within a few hundred yards of the fighting but have not intervened.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (REH’-jehp TY’-ihp UR’-doh-wahn) says more than 200,000 people have fled the fighting in and around Kobani in recent weeks. Their flight is among the largest single exoduses of the three-year Syrian conflict.
Since the militants’ offensive began in mid-September, activists say more than 400 people have been killed in the fighting.
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211-r-28-(Sound of distant explosion, people murmuring, then several more explosions and sporadic gunfire, from video shot across Turkish border toward besieged Syrian city of Kobani)–Sound of distant explosions as heard from the Turkish border, as fighting continues in Kobani, Syria. (6 Oct 2014)
< APPHOTO AXLP134: A Turkish Kurd sitting in the outskirts of Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border, watches as smoke rises from a strike in Kobani, Syria, where the fighting between militants of the Islamic State group and Kurdish forces intensified, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014. Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab and its surrounding areas have been under attack since mid-September, with militants capturing dozens of nearby Kurdish villages. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) (7 Oct 2014) < Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.