ISIL Closes In on Turkish Border Town


ISIL Closes In on Turkish Border Town

TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) closed in on a key Kurdish town in Syria, right next to the border with Turkey, prompting the government in Ankara to deploy tanks to protect its territory.

The news comes as activists reported early on Tuesday that US jets attacked ISIL in Syria overnight, killing at least two civilians as well as an unknown number of rebel fighters.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes hit mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Manbij, in an area controlled by ISIL.

Strikes on a building on a road leading out of the town also killed a number of ISIL fighters, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the observatory, which gathers information from sources in Syria.

Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Suruc close to Turkey's southern border, said ISIL forces had moved within 2km of the western side of Kobane.

Intensified shelling in and around Kobane has angered Kurds on the Turkish side of the border, who said the government of President Recep Tayip Erdogan was not doing enough to stop the assault.

Al Jazeera's Stefanie Dekker, reporting from the Turkish border, said mortar shells have landed in Turkey, but the Turkish military has so far refrained from responding, even as more tanks have been deployed. 

Turkish tanks have been sent to hills overlooking Kobane, while a US-led coalition intensified its bombing of ISIL in northern and eastern Syria.

 

 

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