A new round of fighting has been reported in the key Kurdish northern Syria border town of Kobani (Ayn al-Arab in Arabic), with ISIS making another push at claiming the city’s center.
ISIS has been pushing into Kobani for weeks now, and today’s offensive has finally put them in the center of town, though fighting for actual control of that part of Kobani continues.
The current estimates are that ISIS holds roughly half of Kobani, and that the fighting is raging less than a kilometer away from the border into neighboring Turkey. Virtually the entire Kobani population has fled into Turkey.
Kurdish fighters in the town are continuing to predict a “last-minute” attack by the US and other nations will rescue the town from ISIS, though this seems increasingly unlikely, as US airstrikes have not slowed the ISIS push significantly, and the US has insisted Kobani is not one of their strategic objectives.
That the Kurds have held out as long as they have is surprising, as ISIS began attacking the town on Thursday, and has hit it daily since then, adding reinforcements recently.