Fighting continues in Kobane, Turkish bombardment wounds many

KOBANE BORDER—Turkish bombardment of Kobane on Saturday has wounded a number of civilians and fighters inside the Kurdish city, the city administrator said.

“Under the pretense of stopping an ISIS attack on Turkey the Turkish army bombarded the center of Kobane with tanks and artillery,” Anwar Muslim, co-chair of the Kobane canton told Rudaw. “A number of civilians and fighters have been wounded.”

Muslim said that heavy fighting is going on between the Islamic State (ISIS) militants and the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and the Peshmerga forces in several parts of the city.

“The YPG and Peshmerga have countered all the attacks, the fighting is still going on and we have a number of wounded,” said Muslim.

He added that the Kurdish forces still control most of the city, but “the ISIS has mined the few parts of the city that are under their control,”

Muslim said that the Turkish authorities had turned off electricity at the refugee camp on the border and imposed a total blackout during their bombardment of the city.

Earlier in the day Reuters reported that four ISIS militants had led the attack on Kobane by blowing themselves up at the crossing point between Turkey and the Kurdish city.

According to the report, 30 people were killed in the beginning of renewed clashes between the Kurdish forces and the Islamist fighters.

Kurdish leaders accused Turkey of facilitating the attack on the city, but the office of Turkish Prime Minister dismissed the accusation, saying the vehicles used in the car bombings hadn’t crossed from Turkey.