Beirut: Kurdish forces battled overnight with Islamists trying to seize a hill overlooking a Syrian border town with Turkey as US-led coalition warplanes carried out raids on the militants, a Kurdish official and a monitoring group said on Sunday.
A translator with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) inside Ain Al Arab said Daesh forces were hitting it with tank and mortar fire as they tried to seize Mistanour hill, a landmark whose capture would give them easy access to the town.
Kurdish forces had managed to stop Daesh capturing the hill, Parwer Mohammad Ali said.
“Overnight there were new air strikes. They struck three or four times in the vicinity Mistanour hill,” he added.
Daesh, a radical offshoot of Al Qaida, launched a new offensive to capture Ain Al Arab, a Kurdish town, two weeks ago as they try consolidate their hold on a stretch of territory across northern Syria and Iraq.
US-led air raids on Daesh in Syria have done little to blunt its advance on Ain Al Arab, also known as Kobani in Kurdish, and the violence has driven about some 180,000 Kurds into Turkey.
Turkey has shown no sign it will intervene to directly confront Daesh on its borders. It sees the Kurdish armed groups defending Ain Al Arab as foes.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the three-year-old Syrian war, said Daesh has managed to capture the southern side of Mistanour hill, the furthest away from the town.
At least 11 Kurdish fighters and 16 Daesh insurgents were killed in the overnight clashes, it said.
Ocalan Iso, deputy commander of the Kurdish forces defending Ain Al Arab, said the clashes had focused on the hill, which lies to the south east. Daesh forces are now within a kilometre of Ain Al Arab, he said by telephone.
Some violence has already spilt over the border. Early on Sunday a mortar round landed around 500 metres inside Turkish territory close to an army base at Mursitpinar.
Explosions were audible across the border from Ain Al Arab, where shells continued to land inside.
Special forces officer wounded
On Saturday a Turkish special forces officer was wounded after being hit by shrapnel from a stray shell apparently fired by Daesh fighters, according to media and local sources.
Two Turkish armoured vehicles were stationed at the Yumurtalik border crossing 5km west of Ain Al Arab on Sunday with their guns trained on Syria, but there was no sign of significant troop movements.
Tanks, which earlier in the week had been deployed along the border, had returned to their base.
Further west in Syria, government warplanes bombed towns in the countryside north of Aleppo, which the Syrian military is seeking to recapture from a mix of insurgent groups.
Last week the Syrian army made a new advance on Aleppo, seizing three villages north of the city and threatening rebel supply lines in a potentially major reversal.
President Bashar Al Assad’s army has intensified an offensive in the heavily-populated western areas of Syria as US-led warplanes concentrate on areas in the north and east — Daesh areas which Damascus sees as less important.
Clashes took place between the Syrian army and Daesh insurgents around Kowaires military airbase in Aleppo, the Observatory said. Syrian warplanes on Saturday carried out raids around the airport.
In the industrial city of Shaikh Najjar, northeast of Aleppo, Islamist groups including the Nusra Front also fought with government forces backed by pro-government militias and fighters from Shiite Lebanese group Hezbollah, the Observatory said.
