ISTANBUL, Turkey – Coalition airstrikes helped Kobane’s Kurdish defenders recapture the strategic Tel-Shahir village Friday, as Turkey said the number of Peshmerga being sent by Iraqi Kurdistan to reinforce Kurdish rebels in the besieged Syrian town had been reduced to 150.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also confirmed reports the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) would deploy 1,300 of its troops to Kobane in the fight against Islamic State (ISIS).
In Kobane, at least 11 ISIS fighters and four from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) were killed in the fighting for Tel Shahir, a village on a strategic hill overlooking the town, according to a Rudaw correspondent on the Kobane border.
YPG forces were forced to withdraw from Tal Shahir on Thursday due to a shortage of ammunition and weapons.
This week, the Kurdistan Region voted overwhelmingly to approve sending the Peshmerga to support their kinsmen in Kobane along the Turkish border, and Ankara has said it would give them passage across its soil.
On Thursday, Erdogan said an agreement had been reached with the YPG’s Democratic Unity Party (PYD), the main Kurdish faction in northern Syria, to send 200 Peshmerga.
“The PYD had agreed on a group of Peshmerga of up to 200-300 people. According to information I have just received, this figure has now reduced to 150,” Erdogan said on live television during a visit to Estonia.
He also confirmed several media reports the FSA, a loose group of anti-Islamist rebels backed by Turkey, the West and the Arab World, had agreed to send 1,300 of its men to fight alongside the Kurds in Kobane and that Ankara was also happy to let them cross through Turkish territory.
“Our relevant bodies are now discussing how this transit route should take place. We have no issue with the FSA crossing from our side to the concerned region. We have said before that we are positive towards this,” Erdogan said.
ISIS jihadists have laid siege to Kobane, which sits hard on Turkey's border, for the past five weeks in an attempt to strengthen their grip along the frontier. Scores of U.S.-led coalition air strikes on ISIS positions over the past month have helped stop the town from falling but have not been enough to drive the militants out.
The deployment of Peshmerga with heavy weapons could be a turning point in the battle for the town, where lightly-armed YPG fighters have been battling the jihadists armed with tanks and armoured vehicles.
Erdogan did not elaborate on why the number of Peshmerga had been reduced. Although the PYD has called for international help in Kobane, it is thought to be uneasy about the arrival of Peshmerga because of its assertion that the YPG should be the only Kurdish force in Syria.
However, this week the various Syrian Kurdish factions signed a power-sharing agreement in Iraqi Kurdistan to try and put aside their differences in order to maximise international support. The PYD's main political rival is the Kurdish National Council (KNC), which is backed by Iraqi Kurdistan's President Masoud Barzani.
Turkey had rebuffed earlier requests by the PYD to allow its own fighters from other Kurdish areas in Syria, which are encircled by ISIS, to cross through Turkey into Kobane. Ankara sees the PYD as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish Kurdish insurgent group which has waged a 30-year war against the state.
Turkey and the PKK are now engaged in tentative peace talks to try and end the insurgency which has cost some 40,000 lives and has devastated Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.
The arrival of 1,300 FSA fighters will greatly help the beleaguered Kurdish fighters in Kobane and also carries political implications. The PYD and the FSA have had an ambivalent relationship throughout Syria's civil war and have even battled each other at times.
However, there have been an increasing amount of battlefield alliances between the groups as they have found a common enemy in ISIS and the YPG has said it would work with the FSA to try and defeat the jihadists. The FSA has been wary of the PYD because of its links to the Syrian government while the PYD says the FSA is not concerned with enhancing Kurdish rights.
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