Kurds Battle ISIL Militants Closing In on Syrian Town
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Kurdish forces battled with ISIL militants trying to seize a hill overlooking a Syrian border town with Turkey as US-led coalition warplanes carried out raids on the militants, a Kurdish official and a monitoring group said on Sunday.
A translator with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) inside Kobani said the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) forces were hitting it with tank and mortar fire as they tried to seize Mistanour hill, a landmark whose capture would give them easy access to the town.
Kurdish forces had managed to stop ISIL capturing the hill, Parwer Mohammed Ali told Reuters.
"Overnight there were new airstrikes. They struck three or four times in the vicinity Mistanour hill," he added.
ISIL, a radical offshoot of al Qaeda, launched a new offensive to capture Kobani, a Kurdish town, two weeks ago as they try consolidate their hold on a stretch of territory across northern Syria and Iraq.
US-led air raids on ISIL in Syria have done little to blunt its advance on Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, and the violence has driven about some 180,000 Kurds into Turkey.
Turkey has shown no sign it will intervene to directly confront ISIL on its borders. It sees the Kurdish armed groups defending Kobani as foes.