Kurds expel ISIL from Syria’s Kobani: monitor

In a double victory against ISIL and its self-declared Islamic "caliphate", Kurdish fighters look to have taken full control of Syria's Kobani, while Iraqi forces have "liberated" eastern Diyala province.

Members of Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) celebrate their victory in Kobani on January 26, 2015. STR/EPA

BEIRUT // Kurdish fighters have expelled all ISIL militants from inside the Syrian border town of Kobani, a monitor group said on Monday, dealing a key symbolic blow to the extremist group’s ambitions.

Meanwhile, Iraqi forces declared they had “liberated” the eastern province of Diyala from ISIL, retaking all populated areas.

In Kobani, members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) had “full control” of the town, said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory, which has a network of sources on the ground in Syria, said Kurdish forces were carrying out “mopping-up operations” against remaining ISIL forces in the Maqtala district, on the eastern outskirts of the town.

“The Kurds are pursuing some jihadists on the eastern outskirts of Kobani, but there is no more fighting inside now,” said Mr Rahman.

YPG spokesman Polat Jan appeared to confirm the news on his Twitter account, writing: “Congratulations to humanity, Kurdistan, and the people of Kobani on the liberation of Kobani.”

Mustafa Ebdi, an activist from the town, also said that “fighting has stopped”.

YPG forces were “advancing carefully in Maqtala because of the threat of mines and car bombs,” he said.

The apparent victory comes after four months of fighting and followed 24 hours of heavy bombing by the US-led coalition fighting ISIL in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

In a statement, the Pentagon said the coalition had carried out 17 air strikes against ISIL positions in Kobani in the 24 hours from January 25 alone.

The targets included “tactical units” and “fighting positions” as well as an ISIL vehicle and staging areas, the statement said.

On Monday night it declined to declare the battle for Kobani won, however.

The loss of Kobani would be a key symbolic and strategic blow for ISIL, which has lost more than 1,000 fighters since it began its advance on the town on September 16.

At one time the group looked set to overrun Kobani.

ISIL fighters vastly outgunned the YPG thanks to weapons captured from military bases in Syria and Iraq, and sent hundreds of fighters to the battle in a bid to cement the group’s control over a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.

But the YPG gradually pushed back the extremists with the help of extensive air raids by the US-led coalition, as well as fighters from Iraq’s Kurdish peshmerga forces.

Since ISIL emerged in its current form in 2013, it has captured large swathes of territory in both Syria and Iraq, declaring an Islamic “caliphate”.

But failure in Kobani could put the brakes on its plans for expansion in Syria.

“Kobani has become a huge symbol. Everyone knows Kobani, it’s where the Kurds stopped IS,” Kurdish affairs analyst Mutlu Civiroglu said earlier in January, referring to the group by their self-declared acronym.

“They lost hundreds of fighters, millions of dollars of weapons, and the image that wherever IS goes no one can stop them,” he added.

The fighting in Kobani has killed at least 1,600 people, the Observatory says.

However, civilians have largely been spared because the town’s residents evacuated en masse in the early stages of the fighting – mostly across the border into Turkey.

Over in Iraq, Staff Lieutenant General Abdulamir Al Zaidi said the country’s forces were “in complete control of all the cities and districts and subdistricts of Diyala province.”

The last battle for a populated part of the province took place between Friday and Monday in the Muqdadiyah area, north-east of Diyala capital Baquba.

Gen Al Zaidi and district council chief Adnan Al Tamimi both said that Iraqi forces were in control of the entire area, including the town of Muqdadiyah and various villages, where the fighting took place.

Fifty-eight pro-government forces were killed and 248 wounded in the fighting, while more than 50 ISIL fighters died, Gen Al Zaidi said.

However, the general said that there will still be further fighting against the group in the rural Hamreen mountains, which stretch across multiple provinces, including Diyala.

ISIL launched a lightning offensive over the summer that began in the northern city of Mosul in June and swept down to overrun much of Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland.

Iraqi federal forces, Kurdish troops, Shiite militiamen and Sunni tribesmen are all fighting against the extremists in various parts of the country.

Meanwhile in Russia, the diplomatic route looked to be having less success on Monday.

Syrian opposition figures were meeting in Moscow for the start of four-day talks as part of a new Russia-coordinated bid to wind down that country’s war. But few held out any hope of a breakthrough.

Several prominent opposition figures, including the main National Coalition opposition group, have refused to join the talks and Syrian president Bashar Al Assad has also cast doubt on the initiative bearing any fruit.

In an interview with the US Foreign Affairs magazine, published on Monday, he said that some of the Syrian opposition attending the talks are “puppets” paid by Qatar, Saudi Arabia or Western countries including the United States, while others “don’t represent anyone in Syria.”

Despite this, members of Mr Al Assad’s government were expected to join the closed-door talks later in the week.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the aim of the first two days of discussion was to “provide a platform for the Syrian opposition so that they can develop some shared approaches to talks with the government.”

“We plan that after two days of contacts between Syrians in Moscow, the representatives of the Syrian government will join the opposition, again just in order to establish personal contact,” Mr Lavrov said on Monday.

He added that the Moscow meetings were part of a process aimed at restarting UN-mediated talks to end nearly four years of civil war that has claimed more than 200,000 lives since 2011.

Two previous rounds of talks in Geneva ended without success.

The discussions come as there are signs that Washington may be rethinking its Syria policy to focus on the fight against ISIL, rather than toppling Mr Al Assad.

* Agence France-Presse