A barrage of US-led airstrikes in and around the Syrian city of Kobane, including 39 over the past two days, has killed hundreds of Islamic State fighters and has stiffened the city’s Kurdish defenders, the Pentagon’s spokesman said.
Offering an unusually detailed description of the fighting, Rear Adm John Kirby told reporters that all but “hundreds” of civilians have evacuated the city and that increasing numbers of Islamic State group fighters are flowing in.
“One of the reasons why you’re seeing more strikes there is because there is more ISIl there,” Kirby said, using a common acronym for the extremist group. Their greater numbers are providing more targets for US bombs, he said on Wednesday.
“It’s hard to give an exact number, but we believe that we have killed several hundred ISIl fighters,” he added.
He did not specify a time period; airstrikes there began Oct 1, according to US Central Command, which announced on Wednesday that it had launched 18 airstrikes near Kobane over the previous 24 hours, following a barrage of 21 strikes there the previous 24 hours. Kirby said Kobane remains in danger of falling to the Islamic State fighters, who are intently focused on the city. “These guys want to grab ground. They want territory,” he said. “Kobane is a territory they want.”
Central Command said the latest airstrikes by American bombers and fighter jets destroyed multiple Islamic State fighting positions in the Kobane area.
It said the strikes also hit 16 buildings there occupied by the militants. John Allen, the retired Marine general who is President Barack Obama’s coordinator of the coalition campaign against the Islamic State group, described the intensification of US airstrikes in Kobani as a humanitarian move.
“There was a need for additional fire support to go in to try to relieve the defenders” and to buy time and space for them to get better organised, Allen said.
Activists and officials in the region said the airstrikes, which have been joined in some cases by coalition partners including Saudi Arabia, have bolstered the Kurdish militiamen fighting pitched battles in the city and making small advances.
Kirby said the combined effects of US and coalition airstrikes in Kobane and other areas in Syria over the
past three weeks have taken a toll on the Islamic State militants. But he added that no one should expect decisive results there or elsewhere in Syria anytime soon.