Most of Kobani still under Kurdish control, US says

Kurdish fighters appeared to control most of the Syrian border town of Kobani Thursday amid continued US air strikes on Islamic State jihadists, the US military said.

US Central Command said American bombers, fighter aircraft and drones struck five times south of Kobani, damaging or destroying an IS training camp, a building and two vehicles.

The strikes also hit two IS combat units, one small and the other large, said the command, which oversees US military operations in the region.

“US Central Command continues to monitor the situation in Kobani closely,” it said. “Indications are that Kurdish militia there continue to control most of the city and are holding out against ISIL.”

ISIL is an alternative acronym for the Islamic State group.

IS forces have been advancing on Kobani, also known as Ain al-Arab, whose fall would give the jihadist group control over a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.

Pressure on Turkey to intervene militarily has been mounting, as its own Kurdish population has mounted protests in cities throughout the country over the past days. Turkey, however, has said that it will not consider sending in ground troops unless the US-led coalition established a buffer zone around the Syria-Turkey border..

However, Russia, which is a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, said on Thursday that any plan to set up a buffer zone in Syria would need to be approved by the United Nations.

“The UN Security Council must take the decision on such zones,” Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

While the idea has gotten support from France, the White House — which is leading a coalition of countries in an air campaign against IS jihadists — has said the idea is not yet under consideration, and NATO said it had not discussed the issue.

Lukashevich said that any unilateral attempts by one nation or a coalition to create a buffer zone would be “illegitimate”.

He warned that the “unsanctioned” US air strikes in Syria would be used by Islamic extremists to “further fan the flames of radical opinion”.

Moscow has been a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime throughout the country’s civil war and has repeatedly thwarted UN action against him.

More than 180,000 people have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the uprising against Assad in March 2011.