(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Jihadists are on the verge of seizing the key Syrian border town of Kobane, Turkey warned yesterday, after a three-week assault by the Islamic State group that has left hundreds reported dead.
The fall of Kobane to IS would mark a major victory for the jihadists, who are fighting for a long stretch of the border with Turkey for their self-proclaimed "Islamic caliphate".
With the battle entering a crucial phase, US and Arab warplanes launched fresh strikes on IS positions near Syria's third largest Kurdish town.
At least 412 people, more than half of them jihadists, have been killed in and around Kobane since mid-September, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that the strategically important town was "about to fall", saying a ground operation was needed to defeat the militants.
"I am telling the West - dropping bombs from the air will not provide a solution," he said.
Iran, which unlike the West supports President Bashar Al Assad's regime, criticised the "passivity of the international community" in the face of the IS offensive.
Kurdish militia in Kobane waged fierce street battles with the advancing jihadists, who pierced the town's defences on Monday.
The Kurdish defenders have vowed to "fight to the last person," said Kobane activist Mustafa Ebdi. Gunfire, explosions and the roar of fighter jets were heard from the Turkish side of the border, while a Kurdish flag was seen flying in the centre of Kobane, a journalist reported.
"We need help from the international community," said Idris Nahsen, a Kurdish official still in the town, which is also known as Ain Al Arab.
"Either we finish them (IS) or they will finish us," he said by telephone.
Kurdish fighters have ordered civilians to evacuate the town, after the jihadists planted their black flags on its eastern side and entered Kobane on Monday.
"There are no more civilians in Kobane. It's just a battlefield," said resident Faruq Hajji Mustafa, who fled the town on Monday.
The United States and its allies have launched nearly 2,000 air raids against jihadists in both Iraq and Syria in an attempt to stop their advance, including five strikes near Kobane on Monday and Tuesday.
Several armed vehicles, anti-aircraft artillery, a tank and a jihadist "unit" were damaged or destroyed, the Pentagon said.
Four more air raids were carried out elsewhere in Syria-including on a facility producing homemade bombs-as well as four strikes in Iraq.
Warplanes from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates took part in the bombing raids in Syria.
The Netherlands said its F-16s had carried out their first strikes on IS in Iraq as part of the US-led campaign, targeting armed vehicles shooting at peshmerga Kurdish fighters.
At least 17 people were reported killed north of the Iraqi city of Samarra in a suicide bombing on a militia observation post watching for IS fighters crossing the Tigris River late on Monday.
The battle for Syria's Kobane has prompted some 200,000 residents to flee across the Turkish border.
An official in the Turkish town of Suruc said on Tuesday that 700 people, including 47 wounded, had crossed the frontier overnight, both civilians and Kurdish fighters.
Seven bodies were also carried across. Turkey last week won parliamentary approval for military intervention against IS in Syria and Iraq, but it has yet to announce any firm plans despite the advance of the jihadists on its doorstep.
IS, an extremist Sunni Muslim organisation, has taken advantage of the chaos unleashed by Syria's several-sided civil war to capture large parts of the country, as well as of neighbouring Iraq.
The group has been accused of carrying out widespread atrocities, including mass executions, abductions, torture and forcing women into slavery.
In northwestern Syria, a rival extremist organisation to IS - the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front - abducted a priest and 20 other Christians on Sunday night, the Franciscan Order said.
IS sparked outrage at the weekend with the release of a video showing the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning, one of several Western hostages killed by the group.
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