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ISLAMIC STATE (Isis) forces captured the deserted Kurdish village of Siftek in northern Syria today, using it as a base to intensify attacks on the city of Kobane.
They are now within three miles of Kobane and have begun hitting it with mortars and artillery shells.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that air strikes by US-led coalition warplanes had hit Isis fighters east and west of Kobane and that that fighting around the city had killed 57 fighters on Monday — both Kurdish defenders and Isis.
Ground fighting focused around the city’s eastern edge yesterday, where members of the local YPG Kurdish militia destroyed two Isis tanks.
The situation in Kobane “very difficult,” said Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) spokesman Nawaf Khalil.
The PYD is linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) of jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, but unlike the PKK it is not denounced as terrorist by Turkey and the US.
