Kurdish forces on Monday drove the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria from Kobani after a four-month struggle that saw the town near Syria’s border with Turkey become the symbol of resistance to the extremist group.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced on its Facebook page that the Syrian Kurdish group YPG had taken complete control of the town.
“I can see the YPG flag flying over Kobani. There are the sounds of jets flying above,” Tevfik Kanat, a Turkish Kurd who rushed to the border with hundreds of others, including refugees from Kobani, told Reuters by telephone.
“People are dancing and singing, there are fireworks. Everyone feels a huge sense of relief.”
The successful defense of Kobani runs counter to the situation in the rest of Syria, where the Islamic State has gained ground despite months of punishing airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition.
Many of those airstrikes have focused on aiding Kobani’s defenders, since U.S. officials — after initially shrugging at the town’s fate — made its defense a strategic goal. U.S. Central Command officials said the latest strikes Sunday and Monday had destroyed six Islamic State fighting positions, a vehicle and a staging area for the group’s fighters.
The tide in the fight began to turn in October, when Turkey, under pressure from its own Kurdish population, allowed Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters to reinforce Kobani’s defenders.
