Iraqi Kurds enter besieged Kobane
Heavily armed Iraqi peshmerga forces reached the Turkish border yesterday and a first small party entered the town of Kobane as they prepared to join fellow Kurds battling jihadists.
The 10 fighters briefly entered Kobane to coordinate with Kurdish militia who have been holding off an assault by jihadists of the so called Islamic State (ISIS) group for six weeks, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Turkey's Firat news agency said they returned to the town of Suruc on the Turkish side of the border after talks on the logistics of the peshmerga and the weapons crossing the frontier.
A peshmerga convoy reached Suruc Thursday after travelling through southeastern Turkey along roads clogged with flag-waving Kurds, an AFP photographer said. There it linked up with a second group of peshmerga who had flown in Wednesday, but it was unclear when the main force would cross into Kobane.
Officials have said there are about 150 peshmerga fighters in total, armed with machineguns, heavy artillery and rocket launchers.
Kobane has become an important symbol of the battle against ISIS, an extremist Sunni Muslim group that has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq, committing atrocities and declaring an Islamic "caliphate".
A US-led coalition carrying out air raids against ISIS has intensified attacks near Kobane, and the Pentagon said its warplanes made 10 strikes in the area on Wednesday and yesterday. The coalition carried out two other strikes elsewhere in Syria and two in Iraq, it said.
Under pressure from Washington, Ankara agreed last week to allow the peshmerga to cross its territory to Kobane. Turkey also allowed dozens of lightly armed Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels to cross into Kobane Wednesday. An FSA commander told reporters in Turkey it has 400 fighters in Kobane and more on the way.
On the humanitarian front, UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura proposed setting up so-called "freeze zones" in Syria to suspend fighting in some areas and allow aid deliveries.
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