IS Advances in Kobane despite Raids as U.S. Says Airstrikes Alone Can't 'Save' Town
Jihadists fighting to take the strategic Syrian border town of Kobane advanced Wednesday despite intensified U.S.-led air strikes.
Kobane has become a symbol of resistance against the Islamic State group, which proclaimed an Islamic "caliphate" across swathes of Iraq and Syria, carrying out beheadings and other atrocities.
The three-week IS group assault on Kobane has sent some 200,000 people flooding across the border into Turkey, and some residents said hundreds more remained two days after jihadists breached the town's defenses.
"There are 1,000 civilians who refuse to leave," said activist Mustafa Ebdi.
"One of them, aged 65, said to me: "Where would we go? Dying here is better than dying on the road.'"
U.S. and coalition aircraft targeted IS fighters near the town Wednesday, launching six attacks to help the defenders, the U.S. military said.
The strikes destroyed an armored personnel carrier, artillery and several vehicles, Central Command said.
The sounds of heavy gunfire and mortar shells were heard from the Turkish side of the border, an Agence France-Presse reporter said, as fierce street battles raged.
"The raids helped prevent the fall of the town, but what is needed now is weapons," said Ebdi.
An IS fighter carried out a suicide truck bombing in east Kobane, but there was no immediate news of casualties, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Observatory directory Rami Abdel Rahman said IS forces had advanced around 100 meters (yards) towards the town center Wednesday evening, but that fighting had subsided slightly.
But he added that IS group reinforcements were heading from Syria's Raqa province.
The Observatory says about 400 people, more than half of them jihadists, have been killed in and around Kobane since the assault began in mid-September.
Later on Wednesday, the U.S. military said American and coalition aircraft kept up bombing raids on Islamic State jihadists near Kobane, carrying out six attacks to help Kurdish fighters defending the town.
U.S. and allied bombers, fighter jets and robotic drones hit the IS group over a 24 hour period with four strikes south of the town, destroying an armored personnel carrier, three vehicles and an artillery piece, Central Command said in a statement.
A fifth raid southwest of Kobane destroyed an IS armed vehicle and a sixth strike decimated an artillery cannon on the "southern edge" of the town, it said.
Coalition warplanes also bombed IS positions with two strikes northwest of Raqa, hitting a training camp, and a raid in Deir Ezzor, destroying a tank.
Aircraft from the United Arab Emirates, one of five Arab countries involved in the air campaign, also took part in the latest strikes along with American planes, said Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East.
The IS group has been closing in on Kobane for days but Kurdish militia -- backed by U.S.-led air power -- have reportedly managed to roll back IS militants out of several neighborhoods amid heavy fighting overnight.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, also said IS fighters had withdrawn overnight from several areas and were no longer inside the western part of Kobane.
Coalition forces also renewed air strikes on IS militants Iraq on Tuesday and Wednesday, with five bombing raids by fighter jets and unmanned drones, Central Command said.
The operation included three strikes west of Baghdad, where Iraqi government forces are under pressure from IS fighters, it said.
One raid east of Fallujah destroyed an IS checkpoint and armed vehicle, a strike in western Ramadi destroyed three IS buildings and two anti-aircraft artillery pieces and a bombing run northwest of Ramadi destroyed an IS checkpoint, it said.
Coalition forces, which included British and Dutch warplances, also bombed IS targets near Mount Sinjar in two strikes.
The United States launched its air campaign against the IS group on August 8 in Iraq and extended it into Syria on September 23.
On Tuesday, fighting had raged in the east, west and south of Kobane, which is Syria's third biggest Kurdish town, and a US-led coalition fighting IS carried out multiple air strikes around it.
Mustafa Ebdi, a Kurdish journalist and activist from Kobane, wrote on his Facebook page that "the streets of the Maqtala neighborhood in southeastern Kobane are full of the bodies of Daesh fighters," using the Arabic acronym for IS.
But he added that hundreds of civilians remained in the town and "the humanitarian situation is difficult and people need food and water."
IS began its advance on Kobane on September 16, quickly sweeping through the surrounding countryside and prompting an estimated 186,000 people to flee the region across the border into Turkey.
According to the Observatory, at least 412 people have been killed in the fighting, though the group said it believes the true toll could be twice as high.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon warned Wednesday that U.S. air power on its own could not prevent IS jihadists from capturing Kobane.
U.S.-led aircraft were hitting the IS group at every opportunity but without a competent force on the ground to work with, there were limits to what could be accomplished by bombing from the air, spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters.
"Air strikes alone are not going to do this, not going to fix this, not going to save the town of Kobane," Kirby said.
"We know that. And we've been saying that over and over again."
Ultimately, "capable" ground forces -- rebel fighters in Syria and Iraqi government troops -- would have to defeat the IS group, but that would take time, he said.
Kirby said that "we don't have a willing, capable, effective partner on the ground inside Syria right now. It's just a fact."
Other towns could also fall to the IS group until local ground forces could find their footing, he added.
The Pentagon's sober assessment came after American-led forces carried out six air raids near Kobane on Tuesday and Wednesday in an attempt to help Kurdish militia who have fought a desperate battle to hold off the IS group's push.
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, said coalition aircraft were bombing the IS group whenever possible but tracking the militants presented a challenge.
"We have been striking when we can," Dempsey told ABC News in an interview.
IS fighters are "a learning enemy and they know how to maneuver and how to use populations and concealment," the general said.
He indicated the IS extremists were more difficult to track as they were staying off of mobile phones or other devices that could be monitored.
"They're becoming more savvy with the use of electronic devices," he said.
"They don't fly flags and move around in large convoys the way they did. . . They don't establish headquarters that are visible or identifiable."
Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, would be a major prize for the jihadists, giving them unbroken control of a long stretch of Syria's border with Turkey.
The United States, along with Arab, European and other allies have launched nearly 2,000 air raids against jihadists in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. President Barack Obama was due to meet military chiefs later Wednesday to discuss the battle.
More than 180,000 people have been killed in Syria since an uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in 2011, morphing into a several-sided civil war that has drawn thousands of jihadists from overseas.
Source: Agence France Presse
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