Alwaght-According to Reuters, ISIS terrorist group armed with tanks edged closer on outskirts of Syrian town of Kobani, a city in Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria inhabited by Kurds, and pummeled it with artillery fire.
ISIS terrorist group battlefield gains in recent months have come as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces have focused on other rebel groups. On Friday the army advanced on the city of Aleppo further west, threatening rebel supply lines in a potentially major reversal.
CNN reported, "ISIS fighters entered the besieged Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani". Although CNN claims that ISIS terrorist group is setting the stage for a vicious street-to-street battle in the shadow of Turkey's border, reports from Kobani rejects this news saying that terrorist are just behind the Kobani's door in a 2 kilometer distance.
Other sources reject CNN claims too. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group, said it did not believe that ISIS terrorist group was in the city itself based on information from more than a dozen sources in Kobani.
Idris Nassan, Kobani’s deputy foreign affairs minister, in his interview with the Guardian said, “ISIS terrorist group stepped up attacks and shells Kobani from the east,” he said that Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) were able to destroy a tank in a village 4km (2.5 miles) from the city, where a large black cloud of smoke visible was from the Turkish border.
"YPG fighters are still holding up the defense of Kobani for the moment", Nassan told the Guardian. "And they will fight to the last drop of blood."
U.S.-led forces have been bombing Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq but the action has done little to stop the group's advance in northern Syria. Air strikes conducted by the America-led coalition have not slowed the Isis advance, and Nassan said strikes in Raqqa and Idlib had made matters worse. "ISIS terrorists from these provinces come to join the fight on Kobani; they run from there to come here."
Kurdish forces have in recent days evacuated several villages around the city, and more refugees crossed the border into Turkey.
“ISIS terrorists said that they would pray in Kobani on the first holiday of Eid”, said Özgür Amed, a Kurdish activist and journalist. "They have made such threats in the past. They will not be able to do that. The only prayer they will hold in Kobani is for their own funeral."
Some analysts believe that ISIS terrorist group's offensive of Kobani is another scenario planned by America to make turkey take part in its coalition. Since turkey public opinion is strongly against turkey's direct military intervene in Syria, such a threat in turkey's borders can make an excuse for Turkish officials to get consent from their people to meddle in Syria. Accordingly, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu vowed Turkey would do everything it could to stop the ISIS terrorist groups advance.
