Turkey Denies IS Bombers Reentered Kobane from its Territory as Group Executes 23 Kurds
Ankara rejected as "black propaganda" claims that Islamic State (IS) militants crossed from Turkey Thursday to carry out a deadly bombings and raids on the Syrian town of Kobane.
Dozens of civilians and fighters on both sides were killed in a day of violence as IS jihadists launched car bomb attacks on the Turkish border crossing adjacent to Kobane and battled Kurdish fighters in the city.
Turkish officials said four victims had died in Turkish hospitals while 135 injured received treatment on the Turkish side of the border.
Claims circulating on the Internet suggested several cars loaded with IS militants passed through the Mursitpinar border crossing in Turkey to make their way into Kobane.
"The claim that Daesh militants passed through the Turkish border is entirely a lie and part of a black propaganda," Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said in a message on Twitter, using a pejorative Arabic term for IS.
The governor's office in the border region of Sanliurfa said its information "proves" IS members infiltrated Kobane from Jarablus in Syria.
It added: "Turkish armed forces are monitoring our borders 24 hours as part of security measures."
The Turkish government said video footage taken from Turkish border security units and broadcast by the state-run Anatolia news agency showed a bomb-laden car did not pass through the Turkish border crossing.
Kurdish activists however accused Turkey on social media of assisting the IS group, with the hashtag #TerroristTurkey becoming a trending topic on Twitter.
Arin Shekhmos, a Syrian Kurdish activist, told AFP in Beirut earlier that IS had entered Syria from Turkey through the Mursitpinar border crossing.
He claimed the IS forces were wearing Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) uniforms as a disguise when they entered.
- 'Back and forth' -
The accusations come amid growing tensions between Syrian Kurds and Turkey.
Turkey says Syrian Kurdish forces who recently made gains in Syria against IS are linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which for decades has waged a deadly insurgency inside Turkey.
Western states have repeatedly accused Turkey of not doing enough to halt the flow of jihadists in both directions across its 911-kilometer (566-mile) border with Syria.
Turkey fiercely rejects the accusations, saying it is making every effort to secure a long border and in turn has accused the West of not playing its part to shoulder the burden of hosting refugees from Syria.
But Turkey's opposition pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) accused the authorities of long allowing IS fighters back and forth across the border.
"IS has in every period being using the Turkish border. It's been going back and forth. There's lots of proof of this," HDP co-chair Figen Yuksekdag said.
"It's not logical to think that IS is no longer using the border when it has been doing so for so long before," she added.
Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led airstrikes and peshmerga fighters from Iraq scored a major victory in January by winning a hugely symbolic battle for Kobane.
Months of fighting has prompted a mass exodus of local residents, with some 200,000 fleeing across the border into Turkey.
Some 35,000 Syrians returned home after Kobane's liberation, another Turkish official told AFP.
The official added that the border crossing of Mursitpinar that lies opposite Kobane has remained closed except for limited use by civilians returning after January.
He also said there was no sign of any new refugee influx so far.
Also on Thursday, IS fighters executed 23 Syrian Kurds, among them women and children, in a village south of Kobane, the Observatory said.
"Islamic State forces shot dead at least 20 people in the Kurdish village of Barkh Butan, including women and children and residents who had taken up arms to fight," it added.
At least five jihadists were killed in clashes with residents, the Observatory continued.
Shekhmos confirmed the executions.
"IS committed a massacre in Barkh Butan, killing some 20 civilians," Shekhmos said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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