Official: Kobani Troops Preparing for New Stage in Operations

The Kurdish people in the Syrian border town of Kobani are still intensely continuing their resistance and have inflicted heavy losses on the terrorists, an official said on Saturday, adding that Kurdish fighters are readying for a new wave of operations after they forced ISIL militants to pull out of the town.
“The clashes continue intensely and the popular forces have managed to inflict heavy losses on the terrorists,” Ahmad Shaikhou, one of the Kobani officials, told FNA on Saturday, adding that after pushing the ISIL terrorists out of the town, “the popular forces are now trying to launch numerous attacks on the terrorists’ positions around the city”.

Shaikhou who is fighting against the terrorists along with other popular forces, said that the terrorists are no more able to stage heavy attacks and now after over 10 suicide blasts, they have resorted to blind artillery and mortar attacks to force the people to leave the city.

Noting that the popular forces are seeking to cleanse the Eastern part of the city from the terrorists, he said that a new stage will soon start in the Kurdish people’s military defense against the terrorists.

Meantime, reports from the region said that despite international pressures on Turkey, no corridor has been created between the country and Kobani to send international aids to the people of the city and the Turkish forces attack anyone who wants to traffic in this region.

Asked about Turkey’s policies on Kobani, Shaikhou said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government had imagined that Kobani would collapse within a few hours, but now they have come to realize the realities on the ground in this region.

He dismissed the Turkish government’s latest statement that it would help the Kurds in case they point their gun at the Damascus government as “another wave of Ankara’s propaganda and psychological warfare”, and said, “We cannot sacrifice our people for the interests of the Turkish government. They want us to become an ally of the ISIL terrorists, but we will resist against them.”

Shaikhou said that the Turkish government and army support the ISIL terrorist group with all its power to meet its interests in Syria.

During the last three days, the Kurdish fighters have been gaining more ground in the battle against the ISIL Takfiri militants in Northern Syrian city of Kobani.

Kurdish fighters gained grounds in the East and West of the Syrian border city on Wednesday. Later reports on Thursday and Friday said the Kurdish popular defense forces pushed back the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants for the second consecutive day in the Kurdish border town of Kobani.

The ISIL terrorists withdrew 4 kilometers from their positions in the besieged town of Kobani.

Yet, reports also said heavy clashes between Kurdish fighters and ISIL militants are underway Northwest of the city.

A local Kurdish official in Kobani, Asya Abdullah, said Kurdish fighters were advancing inside and outside the city.

A UK-based Syrian opposition group said different parts of the city were targeted by US-led airstrikes on Wednesday.

Since September 23, the US and some of its Arab allies — Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates — have been conducting airstrikes against ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

Kobani, also known as Ain al-Arab, and its surroundings have been under attack since mid-September, with the ISIL militants capturing dozens of nearby Kurdish villages.

Over 400 people have reportedly been killed in weeks of heavy battle in Kobani. The reports also said that intense fighting over the strategic town has forced over 200,000 people to take refuge in neighboring Turkey.