ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Islamic State militants launched a pre-dawn assault Thursday on the western part of the ethnically Syrian Kurdish town of Hasaka setting off intense fighting between ISIS militants and soldiers with the Syrian Army, Rudaw reporter Ivan Hasib said from the scene of the attacks.
Hasib said the assault was started by ISIS sleeper cells inside the Hasaka neighborhood of Nashuwa, adding that the extremists used heavy artillery in their attack on the city of more than 400,000 people.
Syrian Army tanks and fighter jets were used to fight off the ISIS attack, according to Hasib, who added that ISIS convoys were bombed on the main road between Hasaka and the strategic town of Tal Abyad, known to Kurds as Gire Spi, on the Turkish border.
“ISIS has completely captured the neighborhoods of Nashuwa and Western Nashuwa,” said Hasib.
Also on Thursday, ISIS attacked the Kurdish-held city of Kobani.
Hasaka and Kobani are located in the ethnically Kurdish area of north Syria along the Turkish border
