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ISIS Carries Out Deadly Attacks on Syrian Border Town of Kobani ISIS Attacks Two Border Towns in Northern Syria
(about 3 hours later)
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Twelve people were killed and 70 were wounded in a car bombing and other attacks by Islamic State militants in the Kurdish town of Kobani on Thursday, hospital officials said. BEIRUT, Lebanon — The jihadists of the Islamic State carried out two new offensives in northern Syria on Thursday, driving car bombs into the Kurdish town of Kobani, according to opposition activists and Syrian state-run news media. Kobani gained international attention last year as the site of a fierce battle between the Islamic State and Kurdish fighters, aided by airstrikes by a United States-led military coalition.
Kurdish forces, helped by the United States and allied air support, retook control of Kobani, which is on the border with Turkey, five months ago after a long siege by the Islamic State. The Islamic State fighters also attacked the government-held city of Hasaka, near the Turkish border, news reports said.
Syrian state television said the Islamic State fighters who carried out the deadly assault in Kobani had entered Syria from Turkey, although it did not provide a source for the report. The new attacks came about a week after the jihadists lost control of the border town of Tal Abyad to a coalition of Kurdish militias and Arab rebels in what was seen as a strategic setback for the terrorist group. But the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has in the past followed its losses with new attacks on other areas it considers vulnerable.
That view was backed by Figen Yuksekdag, one of the leaders of the largely Kurdish People’s Democratic Party in Turkey, who said there was a “high probability” that the attackers had entered Kobani from across the border. Turkey has denied such allegations. Kurdish activists in Kobani said that the jihadists set off at least two car bombs and that groups of fighters took up positions in the town and shot at anyone they saw, setting off clashes with Kurdish militiamen.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry rejected the accusation, with a spokesman, Tanju Bilgic, describing the claims as “lies.” The governor’s office in the Turkish province of Sanliurfa said that evidence showed the militants had entered Kobani from the Syrian town of Jarabulus, to its west. They said the Islamic State fighters had sneaked into the town disguised as Kurdish militiamen and Arab rebels.
Syria has frequently accused Turkey of supporting and equipping Sunni Islamist militants, a charge Turkey has denied. The death toll remained unclear. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict from Britain through contacts on the ground, said eight Islamic State fighters had been killed in addition to 12 civilians and Kurdish fighters. Activists in the town reported higher numbers but said they could not obtain a full count because of the continuing battle.
In the northeast, Islamic State militants have stormed government-held neighborhoods in the predominantly Kurdish city of Hassakeh, capturing several parts of it. Salih Muslim, a Kurdish activist in Kobani, said by phone that the fighting continued late Thursday, with bodies lying in the streets that could not be removed because Islamic State snipers would shoot at rescue crews.
The attacks come after the Islamic State suffered several setbacks in northern Syria against Kurdish forces over the past weeks. Hassakeh is divided between forces loyal to the president, Bashar al-Assad, and Kurdish fighters. The Syrian state news agency, SANA, reported that five people were killed by the initial car bomb and that Kurdish forces were fighting jihadists who had sneaked into the town overnight.
Kobani, a small, poor border town known as Ain al-Arab in Arabic, gained prominence in January, when Kurdish forces finally routed the Islamic State jihadists who were trying to seize the town after losses on both sides and scores of airstrikes.
That battle highlighted Turkey’s complicated relationship with the war just over its border, because the Turkish Army did not intervene against the jihadists nor join the international coalition against them. Turkish leaders have since made it clear that they consider any Kurdish advance near their border a potential threat to national security.
The distrust is mutual, and some Kurdish activists said Thursday that at least one of the car bombs had come from the Turkish side of the border, a charge Turkish officials denied.
Speaking to reporters in Ankara on Thursday, a spokesman for the Turkish foreign ministry, Tanju Bilgic, called those claims “baseless lies.”
Mr. Bilgic said that 63 wounded people had been brought across the border for medical treatment in Turkey after the explosion and that two of them had died in the hospital.
Farther east, Islamic State fighters entered southern parts of the city of Hasaka, sending civilians fleeing and clashing with government forces, who carried out airstrikes on militant positions.