| New York Times | - |
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Islamic State fighters who sneaked into the Syrian
Kurdish town of Kobani on the Turkish border killed more than 150
people there and in nearby villages, Kurdish activists and a monitoring
group said Friday.
BEIRUT,
Lebanon — Islamic State fighters who sneaked into the Syrian Kurdish
town of Kobani on the Turkish border killed more than 150 people there
and in nearby villages, Kurdish activists and a monitoring group said
Friday.
If
that toll is confirmed, the attack would be one of the largest mass
killings by the jihadists in Syria since they started seizing territory
there for their self-declared caliphate, which stretches over the border
into Iraq.
Kobani,
known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, carries heavy symbolism both to the
Islamic State and to some of the forces fighting against it in Syria.
For months last year, Kurdish fighters defended the town
from repeated attacks by the Islamic State, while a military coalition
led by the United States heavily bombed the group’s fighters from the
air. In January, the Islamic State finally lost, in what was considered a
blow to its effort to portray itself as invincible.
But this week, ISIS
struck back, when a group of fighters disguised as local rebels sneaked
into the town at dawn on Thursday, setting off car bombs and shooting
civilians in the street.
Kurdish militias responded, killing dozens of Islamic State fighters. Residents began to collect and bury their kin on Friday.
“The
Daesh attack was a suicide mission,” said Redur Xelil, a spokesman for
the Kurdish militiamen, told Reuters, using an Arabic acronym for the
Islamic State. “Its aim wasn’t to take the city but to create terror.”
Activists
in the town on Friday described the painful process of finding dead
bodies in the streets and going from house to house to collect others
for burial.
“From
yesterday morning at 4 a.m., Daesh sneaked in and started killing in
their silent way,” said Simyar Sheikhi, a Kurdish fighter reached by
phone.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights,
which monitors the conflict from Britain through contacts in Syria,
said that at least 138 bodies had been found in Kobani and 26 others
nearby. Dozens of Islamic State fighters were killed, too, the group
said.
Farther
east, clashes between Islamic State fighters and government troops in
the city of Hasaka had displaced 60,000 people, the United Nations said,
warning that as many as 200,000 eventually may flee.
The
Islamic State stormed into the southern part of the city on Thursday,
engaging in clashes with government troops and associated militias.
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