By OMAR KALO
ON THE KOBANE BORDER – Thousands, mostly men and older boys who were among more than 100,000 Syrian Kurds that washed across the Turkish border to flee Islamic State (IS) attacks on Kobane, have been returning back.
Rudaw witnessed a flood of mostly Kurdish males crossing the Turkish border to return to Kobane on Wednesday, following a second day US-led air raids on jihadi rebels in Syria.
There was no traffic of people fleeing from the Kurdish town and villages around.
Turkish officials have said that more than 130,000 refugees from Kobane had washed over the border within days since Friday.
US jets have been raiding IS targets in Iraq since last month – lately joined by French warplanes. But the air attacks in Syria -- against the IS and other jihadis - began Tuesday, when five Arab countries joined the US raids.
A coalition of some 40 nations has pledged to defeat the IS in Iraq and Syria, where the Islamic radicals have declared a caliphate across the border.
The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) that control Kobane and other parts of Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava in Kurdish), have been keeping the militants at bay in more than three years of fighting.
The IS renewed attacks on Kobane in mid-September, this time with heavy weapons captured from the Iraqi army, igniting a mass exodus and warnings of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the making.
Refugees fled across the border into Turkey, or into other parts of YPG-controlled areas in Rojava, such as Afrin.
