US-led airstrikes against Islamic State intensify near Kobani

Around noon Wednesday, warplanes believed to be of the US-led coalition bombed positions of the Islamic State group near the embattled Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, near the Turkish border. One airstrike, visible from the border, hit a hill and an open space near the town.

Several Syrian human rights groups called on the world to save Kobani from falling into the hands of the jihadist group as the new airstrikes targeted the extremists near the town.

The strikes are part of a wave of US-led coalition bombing this week that aims to prevent Islamic State fighters from capturing the town. An activist group said the strikes killed at least 45 militants since late Monday, forcing them to withdraw from parts of Kobani.

The dramatic appeal by human rights groups came after Islamic State fighters — despite the airstrikes — managed to push into parts of the town, located on the Syria-Turkish border and also known under its Arabic name of Ayn Arab.

Kobani has been under the onslaught of the Islamic State group since mid-September when the militants launched their offensive in the area, capturing several Kurdish villages around the town and bringing Syria’s civil war yet again to Turkey’s doorstep.

The fighting has forced some 200,000 of the town residents and villagers from the area to flee and seek shelter across the frontier in Turkey. Activists also say that more than 400 people have been killed in the fighting.

Also on Wednesday, a US official rebuffed claims that Washington should be doing more to stymie the advance on Kobani, saying the likely fall of the Kurdish city was of little concern.

The unnamed official, speaking to CNN, maintained the Obama administration’s main focus centered on the jihadists’ strategic gains in Iraq.

The official added that the US believed the town would fall into the hands of the Islamic State.

The Kurdish militiamen defending Kobani received some support overnight and Tuesday from the American-led coalition, which carried out six airstrikes against Islamic State operatives around the town, destroying four armed vehicles, damaging a tank and killing fighters, the US military said.

Rather than protecting specific cities or areas, the official said, the US was attempting in its military campaign to curtail the Islamic State’s ability to function as a terror group. He added that airstrikes in Syria had targeted the Islamic State’s senior leadership, oil refineries and infrastructure, according to CNN.

Capturing Kobani would give the Islamic State group, which already rules a huge stretch of territory spanning the Syria-Iraq border, a direct link between its positions in the Syrian province of Aleppo and its stronghold of Raqqa, to the east. It would also give the group full control of a large stretch of the Turkish-Syrian border.

The US-led coalition has conducted airstrikes over the past two weeks near Kobani in a bid to help Kurdish forces defend the town. But the number has been limited, and Kurds have appealed for more help in the fight.

Syria’s Kurds have struggled to gain the sort of Western backing that their brethren in Iraq enjoy, and the aerial campaign around Kobani has been far more limited than the airstrikes against Islamic State fighters attacking Iraqi Kurdish areas. The US and its allies also have not agreed to arm Syrian Kurds like they have Iraqi Kurds.

The United States and five Arab allies launched an aerial campaign against the Islamic State in Syria on September 23 with the aim of rolling back and ultimately crushing the extremist group. The US has been bombing Islamic State targets in neighboring Iraq since August.

Adiv Sterman contributed to this report.