Posted on 10/13/2014 8:12:13 AM PDT by GonzoII
Kurdish fighters have gained ground in their defence of the besieged town of Kobane against Islamic State jihadists, a senior Kurdish official says.
Idris Nassan, deputy foreign affairs minister in the Kobane administration, said that, following fierce clashes overnight, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) managed to advance into a commercial zone northeast of the city.
He added that the Kurdish fighters were also able to advance into an area southwest of Kobane "where they managed to push away Islamic State fighters from the area".
The YPG claimed its forces had killed 138 jihadists in the last 48 hours in the city, which lies on Syria's border with Turkey.
A YPG statement, carried late on Sunday by the Hawar News Agency, which has close ties to the force, stated that Islamic State fighters on the southern front used tanks, rockets and artillery "to attack YPG trenches, but they failed and our fighters repelled them, leaving 17 terrorists killed".
The reported advances by the Kurdish fighters came following intensified overnight airstrikes by the US-led coalition upon areas east and south of Kobane, the Britain-based opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
(Excerpt) Read more at au.news.yahoo.com ...
Another way to look at this, maybe I have rose colored glasses on, is that Kobani is turning out to be a big embarrassment to ISIL. The Kurds are fighting with less weaponry and more troops, yet ISIL has not taking the city and are suffering causalities.
A few thousand Northern Alliance troops saw off the Taliban in Afghanistan after the latter were pounded by round-the-clock airstrikes mounted with B-52's, B-1's, B-2's and land- and carrier-based strike fighters. Afghanistan's the size of Texas. At 1,400 sq miles, Kobani's a speck by comparison. If Obama's putting enough planes in the air, enough shrapnel will land on attacking ISIS troops, their reinforcements and their supply trains to keep them from taking Kobani. That's a very big if.
Or maybe they figure it is better to kill a few idiots and get shot than be beheaded for giving up.
God Bless the Kurds
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