(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Islamic State (IS) militants captured the headquarters of Kurdish fighters defending the battleground Syrian town of Kobane yesterday as a UN envoy warned of a looming "massacre" by the group.
Outgunned Kurdish militia were struggling to prevent the jihadists closing off the last escape route for the thousands of civilians still in or near the town, prompting an appeal for urgent military assistance.
US-led warplanes have intensified air strikes against IS fighters who have been attacking Kobane for three weeks but the Pentagon has warned that, without a force on the ground to work with, there are limits to what can be done.
Neighbouring Turkey has so far held back from any action against the IS on its doorstep, despite four straight nights of protests among its own large Kurdish minority that have left 31 people dead.
The militants' advance has brought the front line to just 1.3km from the border.
IS now controls 40 percent of Kobane, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"The capture of the headquarters will allow them to advance on the border post with Turkey to the north of the town," its director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"If they achieve that, they will have the Kurdish forces inside Kobane completely surrounded."
As fighting raged in the strategic town, an IS militant yesterdaycarried out a suicide car bomb attack to the west of the Kurdish headquarters, the Observatory said. There were no immediate details on casualties.
US planes conducted nine new airstrikes in Syria on Thursday and yesterday, the US military said. Two IS training facilities were destroyed while several vehicles and a tank were hit in the raids, in which planes from the UAE and Saudi Arabia participated, it said. A correspondent on the other side of the Turkish border saw a cloud of white smoke rising above Kobane after coalition strikes yesterday.
UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura appealed to Turkey to take any action it could to protect the 12,000 or so civilians still in or near the town, warning they "will be most likely massacred" if captured by IS fighters.
The coordinator of the US-led campaign against IS, retired US general John Allen, was to hold a second day of talks in Ankara after the Nato ally insisted it could not be expected to take ground action against the jihadists alone.
Kobane activist Mustafa Ebdi said the IS militants were using civilian cars with Kurdish flags to avoid coming under attack by coalition aircraft.
He said the risk of Kobane falling to the militants was high, and described the town as a "symbol of resistance to IS in Syria."
"Every Kurdish fighter is willing to die," he said.
With the world media gathered just across the border in Turkey, the conquest of Kobane would be a highly visible symbolic victory for the extremists.
The situation has been complicated by the close ties between the Kurdish fighters defending the town and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, which has waged a three-decade insurgency for self-rule in southeastern Turkey.
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