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Kurds Battle ISIL over Kobani As US-Led Air Strikes Fail

Local Editor

Syria: Kobani (AP)

Kurdish forces battled overnight with terrorist gunmen trying to seize a hill overlooking a Syrian border town with Turkey as U.S.-led coalition warplanes carried out raids on the militants, Reuters cited a Kurdish official and a monitoring group as saying on Sunday.

A translator with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) inside Kobani said that forces of the so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant' (ISIL) internationally-recognized terrorist group were hitting it with tank and mortar fire as they tried to seize Mistanour hill, a landmark whose capture would give them easy access to the town.

Kurdish forces had managed to stop Islamic State capturing the hill, Parwer Mohammed Ali told Reuters.

"Overnight there were new airstrikes. They struck three or four times in the vicinity Mistanour hill," he added.

ISIL launched a new offensive to capture Kobani, a Kurdish town, two weeks ago as they try consolidate their hold on a stretch of territory across northern Syria and Iraq.

U.S-led air raids on ISIL in Syria have done little to blunt its advance on Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, and the violence has driven about some 180,000 Kurds into Turkey.

Turkey has shown no sign it will intervene to directly confront ISIL on its borders. It sees the Kurdish armed groups defending Kobani as foes.

The opposition Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIL has managed to capture the southern side of Mistanour hill, the furthest away from the town.

At least 11 Kurdish fighters and 16 ISIL gunmen were killed in the overnight clashes, it said.

Ocalan Iso, deputy commander of the Kurdish forces defending Kobani, said the clashes had focused on the hill, which lies to the south east. ISIL forces are now within a kilometer of Kobani, he said by telephone.

Some violence has already spilled over the border. Early on Sunday a mortar round landed around 500 meters (550 yards) inside Turkish territory close to an army base at Mursitpinar.

Explosions were audible across the border from Kobani, where shells continued to land inside, a Reuters correspondent said.

On Saturday a Turkish special forces officer was wounded after being hit by shrapnel from a stray shell apparently fired by ISIL gunmen, according to media and local sources.

Two Turkish armored vehicles were stationed at the Yumurtalik border crossing 5 km (three miles) west of Kobani on Sunday with their guns trained on Syria, but there was no sign of significant troop movements.

Tanks which earlier in the week had been deployed along the border had returned to their base.

Further west in Syria, government warplanes bombed towns in the countryside north of Aleppo, which the Syrian military is seeking to recapture from a mix of armed groups.
Last week the Syrian army made a new advance on Aleppo, seizing three villages north of the city and threatening gunmen supply lines in a potentially major reversal.

The Syrian army intensified an offensive in the heavily-populated western areas of Syria as U.S.-led warplanes concentrate on areas in the north and east where ISIL areas locate, which Damascus sees as less important.