Kurdish forces drive ISIL terrorists out of Kobani: Report
Kurdish forces have succeeded in pushing the ISIL Takfiri terrorists from Syria’s strategic town of Kobani, near the border with Turkey, a report says.
According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Kurdish fighters managed to retake full control of the border town on Saturday.
“The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) took back control of ISIL positions in Kobani,” the group said.
The advance against the terror group came two days after the militants captured several neighborhoods in Kobani’s south and southwest.
“The YPG were able to take back the town’s boys’ high school, where the last of the ISIL fighters were holed up, after setting off explosions,” the SOHR said.
The UK-based group, meanwhile, said the YPG fighters and members of the Kurdish security forces have been combing the town for any remaining ISIL elements.
“All of Kobani is again under the control of the YPG,” local journalist Rudi Mohammad Amin was quoted by AFP as saying. “The YPG detonated explosives outside of the school, then stormed it,” he added.
Meanwhile, reports say a massive explosion rocked the center of the town on Saturday. There are as yet no information on the potential casualties of the blast.
Over 200 civilians killed
The UK-based group says more than 200 civilians have been killed in the latest ISIL attack on the town.
“The number of civilians killed by IS (ISIL) in Kobane and the surrounding area has risen to 206, after additional bodies were found today,” said SOHR Director Rami Abdel Rahman, adding that most of the bodies found on Saturday bore bullet marks.
The terror group, which was driven out of Kobani by Kurdish forces back in January after nearly 100 days of intense battles, entered the town again at dawn on June 25. Shortly after that, the YPG forces surrounded the positions of the militants and started to take back control of the buildings.
Relatives of wounded people react in front of the hospital of Suruc, Sanliurfa Province, on June 25, 2015 after a deadly bombing was carried out in the Syrian town of KobanI, across the border with Turkey. © AFP
Over a dozen Kurdish fighters and 54 Takfiri terrorists have been killed in renewed clashes in Kobani.
The terrorists had vowed to return and defeat the Kurds defending Kobani after they lost control of the strategic border area, located in Aleppo Province.
