ISIS ‘defeated’ in Ain al-Arab, Diyala
Kurdish militiamen drove ISIS from the Syrian town of Ain al-Arab and raised their flags Monday, an activist group and Syrian state media said, although Washington said the four-month battle was not yet over, The Daily Star reported, citing news agencies.
Across the border in Iraq, meanwhile, a top army officer announced troops had “liberated” Diyala province from ISIS jihadis.
In Syria, Kurdish claims of an advance in Ain al-Arab, known in Kurdish as Kobani, on the frontier with Turkey, marked the culmination of a battle lasting more than four months in which nearly 1,800 people were killed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) had “expelled all Islamic State fighters from Kobani and have full control of the town,” using the jihadi group’s latest name.
“The Kurds are pursuing some jihadis on the eastern outskirts of Kobani, but there is no more fighting inside now,” said the Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rahman. Kurdish forces were carrying out “mopping-up operations” against remaining ISIS forces in the Maqtala district, on the town’s eastern outskirts.