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10Oct14

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IS fighters closing in on Syria's Kurdish Kobane

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The Islamic State (IS) militants are only hundreds of meters away from the center of the predominantly Kurdish city of Kobane on the Syrian-Turkish border in northern Syria, a leading Kurdish leader told the pan-Arab al- Mayadeen TV on Friday evening.

Salih Muslim, the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, said the IS fighters are only hundreds of meters from the city center of Kobane, adding that the news about the IS capture of 40 percent of Kobane is unconfirmed.

Muslim said the IS fighters have entered Kobane from its eastern side, adding that the Kurds in Turkey are trying to deliver aid to Kobane but the Turkish border guards are preventing them.

The leading Kurdish figure reiterated that if the IS capture the city, its fighters will commit massacre against the Kurdish population in that area.

The man accused the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition of contributing to the targeting of the Kurds in Kobane, referring to the failure of the U.S. strikes in stemming the flow of the IS into the city.

He went on to say that skepticism is overshadowing the international community's dealing with the Kobane issue.

"We are heading toward a genocide in Kobane on the hands of the IS," he warned, adding that the IS militants have used weapons they had stolen from Iraq's Musel city when they had stormed it last month.

The capture of the city would enable the IS to link its self- declared capital of al-Raqqa province with Kobane and stretch its territory onto the borders with Turkey.

Syrian government officials and Kurdish activists accused Turkey of aiding the IS into capturing Kobane to eliminate the Kurdish presence in that area and impose the long-desired buffer zone protected by a no-fly zone in northern Syria.

Since the IS unleashed its attack on Sept. 16, it has captured more than 300 villages around Kobane and pushed over 160,000 people to flee toward neighboring Turkey.

[Source: Xinhua, Damascus, 10Oct14]

Syria War

This document has been published on 13Oct14 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.