Turkey refugee crisis deepens as IS besieges Syrian border town

(MENAFN- Arab News) KARACA Turkey: All that separates Mohammed Muslim from his village in Syria is a barbed wire fence running along the Turkish border but the dull thud of artillery and the rattle of machine gun fire suggest he will not be going home anytime soon.

Muslim dressed in a battered suit his mustache flecked with grey is among more than 150000 Syrian Kurds who have fled to Turkey over the past week to escape the advance of Islamic State militants who have seized villages and beheaded residents as they push toward the strategic border town Kobani.

'I don't want to be in Turkey I want to be in my village I want to die in Kobani' Muslim said running prayer beads through his hands as he watched Kurdish and Islamic State fighters exchange fire in the valley below. 'If the war goes our way then of course we'll go home but it looks like it will be difficult.'

Turkey already home to an estimated 1.5 million refugees from Syria's civil war is pushing the United States and its allies to create a safe haven for refugees inside Syrian territory. A safe haven along the border would require a no-fly zone policed by foreign jets.

President Tayyip Erdogan until now reluctant to commit to a front line military role in the US-led campaign against Islamic State has said Turkish troops could be used to help set up such a zone. The heavily armed insurgents appear gradually to be forcing the Kurdish fighters back around Kobani raising fears that the town may fall. Either way the tens of thousands of refugees who have crossed the border in recent days may be in Turkey for a long time aid workers say.

The advance toward Kobani is the latest in a series of lightning campaigns by the IS. A steady stream of new refugees kept arriving many of them herding cattle. Labour Minister Faruk Celik who visited the border gate was later quoted as saying the authorities would start to let livestock and vehicles cross.