Syrian Kurds drive Islamic State out of Kobane

Fighters from the Popular Protection Units (YPG) were said to have entered outlying areas in the east of the town after the jihadists retreated.

The US said anti-IS forces were in control of 90% of the town.

Kobane was seen as a major test of the US-led coalition's strategy to combat IS in Syria with air strikes.

Tens of thousands of people fled over the nearby border with Turkey after IS launched an offensive in September, capturing about 300 nearby villages before entering the predominantly Kurdish town itself.

The fighting has left at least 1,600 people dead, among them 1,196 jihadists, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

'Final clean-up'

Photographs posted on social media on Monday afternoon showed the YPG flag being flown around Kobane, and male and female fighters shaking hands. As night fell, celebratory gunfire echoed across the town.

YPG spokesman Polat Jan meanwhile declared on Twitter: "Congratulations to humanity, Kurdistan, and the people of Kobane on the liberation of Kobane."

Anwar Muslim, the president of the self-declared Syrian Kurdish canton of Kobane, told the BBC that the town was fully under the control of the YPG and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who were deployed in October.

However, he added that the situation in the eastern outskirts was still "a little tense", with YPG fighters carrying out "the final clean-up" and besieging areas they believed IS leaders might be hiding.

A statement from US Central Command congratulated the Kurdish fighters, AFP reported.

The Pentagon said it had carried out 17 air strikes in the 24 hours from the morning of 25 January, targeting IS "tactical units" and "fighting positions", as well as vehicle and staging areas.

The retired US general co-ordinating the coalition, John Allen, predicted in November that IS would "impale itself" on Kobane, and analysts said its loss would be a symbolic and strategic blow for the group, which wants to control an uninterrupted stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.

 

(BBC)