500 at risk of massacre if ISIS takes over Syria town: UN

MURSITPINAR (TURKEY): At least 500 civilians who remain trapped in the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani are likely to be "massacred" if it falls to the ISIS group, the UN envoy to Syria warned on Friday, calling on the world to help avert a catastrophe as the extremists pushed deeper into the embattled town.

Staffan de Mistura raised the specter of some of the worst genocides of the 20th century during a news conference in Geneva, where he held up a map of the town along the Syria-Turkey border and said a UN analysis shows only a small corridor remains open for people to enter or flee Kobani.

The dramatic warning came as the ISIS pushed into Kobani from the south and east, taking over most of the so-called "Kurdish security quarter" — an area where Kurdish militiamen who are struggling to defend the town maintain security buildings and where the police station, the municipality and other local government offices are located.

The onslaught by the ISIS on Kobani, which began in mid-September, has forced more than 200,000 to flee across the border into Turkey. Activists say the fighting has already killed more than 500 people. "The city is in danger," said Farhad Shami, a Kurdish activist in Kobani reached by phone from Beirut. He reported heavy fighting on the town's southern and eastern sides and said the ISIS was bringing in more reinforcements.

Kurds protest against the Islamic State militants attack on the Syrian city Kobani in Vienna, Austria.

US-led airstrikes against the extremists appear to have failed to blunt their push on Kobani. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that with the new advances, the ISIS was now in control of 40% of the town. The Observatory, which collects its information from a network of activists on the ground in Syria, said a suicide bomber from the ISIS blew his car up near the Grand Mosque just west of the security quarter, but there was no immediate word of casualties. The US Central Command said in a statement that the US-led coalition conducted nine airstrikes in Syria on Thursday and Friday. It said strikes near Kobani destroyed two ISIS training facilities, as well as vehicles and tanks. Another strike in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour — controlled by the extremists — destroyed an ISIS armoured vehicle staging facility, it said.

On Friday, the militants shelled Kobani's single border crossing with Turkey in an effort to capture it and seal off the town, a local Kurdish official said.

http://ift.tt/1xAeVk6 Kurdish border town

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