Syrian Kurds fight to defend border town against ISIL advance

Turkey struggles to cope with massive influx of refugees as Kurdish youths rush to the aid of their compatriots across the border and security forces fire tear gas and water cannon at protesters.

Syrian refugee families wait near the border with Turkey near Sanliurfa, hoping to escape the fighting in northern Syria. Ulas Yunus Tosun / EPA

MURSITPINAR, TURKEY // Syrian Kurds battled to defend a key border town from an ISIL advance on Monday as Kurdish youths from Turkey rushed to their aid.

In Turkey, which is struggling to manage an influx of more than 130,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees since Friday, security forces fired tear gas and water cannon at hundreds of Kurdish protesters who accuse Ankara of favouring ISIL against the Kurds.

The main Kurdish armed group in northern Syria, the YPG, said its fighters had halted the ISIL advance east of the predominantly Kurdish town of Kobani, but that fierce fighting was continuing.

Hundreds of Kurdish youths gathered on the Turkish side of the border, responding to calls from Kurdish leaders to join the fight against ISIL, which has seized swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Residents fleeing Kobani said the militants were executing people of all ages in villages they seized. Kurds are mostly Sunnis but ISIL views them as apostates because of their secular ideology.

It has persecuted and killed Shiites, Christians and members of the ancient Yazidi sect as well as moderate Sunnis who reject its brutality.

Turkish security forces are now trying to keep Kurds from crossing the frontier to aid their brethren. At the Mursitpinar border crossing, a line of paramilitary police stood guard along a barbed-wire border fence.

“We all want to cross the border. We tried yesterday but they attacked us, and we will try again today,” said Kurdish activist Shirwan, 28, wearing a balaclava and holding a large PKK flag.

Ismet, 19, who makes a living collecting strawberries in the area, said the protesters had gathered from cities across Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish south-east: “They are not from around here. They come from Sirnak, Van, Mardin, Nusaybin.”

He said several hundred Turkish Kurds had already crossed to join the fight. Other residents put the figure higher.

The advances by ISIL just across Turkey’s southern border have alarmed Ankara. But so far Turkey has been slow to join calls for a coalition to fight the extremists, worried in part about links between the Syrian Kurds and Turkey’s own Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which waged an armed campaign for Kurdish rights over several decades.

The United States expects Turkey to step up in the fight after it secured the release of 49 hostages held by the militants, secretary of state John Kerry said on Monday.

Turkey, a Nato member, has made commitments to help in the effort against ISIL but the help has been limited so far because “they first needed to deal with their hostage situation”, Mr Kerry said.

“Now the proof will be in the pudding.”

The hostages – including Turkey’s consul general in the Iraqi city of Mosul, soldiers and children – were freed on Saturday, but Turkish officials said policy towards the extremist group was unlikely to change.

“The hostages weren’t the only concern for our Iraq and Syria policy,” said one senior Turkish official.

“There are security problems, especially in the Kurdish regions of Syria. We are always ready to help them but that doesn’t mean that we will carry out a military operation,” he said.

Turkey strongly denies it has given any form of support to the Islamist militants, but western countries say its open borders during Syria’s three-year civil war allowed ISIL and other radical groups to grow in power.

The PKK called Turkey’s Kurds to arms on Sunday, saying “supporting this heroic resistance” in Kobani was a “debt of honour”.

Radio stations played patriotic Kurdish songs about heroic fighters and martyrs and one played recordings of PKK commander Murat Karayilan in a bid to drum up support.

Deputy prime minister Numan Kurtulmus said more than 130,000 Syrian Kurds had fled to Turkey since Friday.

The ISIL advance to the east of Kobani, scene of the fiercest fighting since the insurgents launched their offensive last Tuesday, had been halted, Redur Xelil, spokesman for the YPG, said.

He said hundreds of Turkish Kurds were already helping in the struggle to push back the insurgents.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in the Syrian war, said ISIL fighters had made no significant advance in the last 24 hours.

The United States has carried out airstrikes against ISIL fighters in Iraq and says it is prepared to extend them into Syria, but has not said when or where strikes would begin.

* Reuters