MURSITPINAR, Turkey — Islamic State terrorists on Saturday launched a new offensive on the northern Syrian town of Kobane after shelling the area from their positions nearby, activists and a Kurdish official said.
Heavy fighting took place in Kobane on Saturday afternoon, and many mortar shells were fired into the town. Machine-gun fire could be heard from inside the town, where black smoke was billowing.
The U.S. Central Command said an airstrike destroyed an Islamic State artillery piece near Kobane. In the afternoon, warplanes of the U.S.-led coalition could be heard flying over Kobane.
Idriss Nassan, a senior official in Kobane, said the fighting concentrated on the southern and eastern edges of the town, also known as Ayn Arab.
“They think they can enter the city, and these are just dreams,” Nassan said, adding that the Islamic State terrorists have not been able to take Kobane despite more than a month of attacks.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting concentrated on the eastern side of the town, surrounded on three sides by Islamic State terrorists. It added that the Islamic State militants were spreading news in areas under their control that they will take Kobane on Saturday.
The Islamic State launched its offensive on Kobane in mid-September and captured dozens of villages before entering parts of the town. The fighting has forced 200,000 people to flee to neighboring Turkey from the fighting.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Central Command said its forces conducted more than 135 airstrikes against the militants in and around Kobane, killing hundreds.
The Observatory and Aleppo-based activist Ahamd al-Ahmad said the area near the northern village of Handarat witnessed intense clashes between Syrian rebels and government forces.
Government forces are trying to cut a main road linking rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, with those in the countryside, Al-Ahmad said.
The Observatory said the fighting near Handarat has left 15 soldiers and pro-government gunmen dead as well as 12 opposition fighters since the early hours of Saturday.
