Kobane almost clear of Islamic State, as reports claim group flies jets over Syria

“The flag of IS is gone” from Kobane, according to a Kurdish official from the town who spoke to the Rudaw news site on Friday.

Hope for calm in the border town comes after efforts to rout Islamic State (IS) militants from the town intensified in the past few days, with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) supported by coalition airstrikes.

The reports come as Kurdish sources told Lebanese newspaper al-Binaa that Turkey had allowed Kurdish fighters from the Iraqi Kurdistan Peshmerga forces to cross through Turkish territory to join the fight against IS in Kobane.

Idris Nassan, deputy foreign affairs minister for the Kobane district, told MEE that there has been heavy shelling in the town in the last 48 hours.

“Last night there were very intensive strikes on IS positions. There were also fierce clashes between the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and IS on the ground.

“There are bombings going on right now, and jet fighters from the international coalition are in the skies – but until now they have not launched any strikes today.”

Even after these heavy strikes, the situation remains varied throughout the city. To the west, IS fighters were pushed to around seven kilometres outside Kobane, with the YPG recapturing a town that fell to IS last week.

Nassan said the YPG were also driving out IS fighters from eastern and south-eastern suburbs of the town.

However, they have not yet been pushed out of the entire city. Nassan estimated that IS are still present in around 10 percent of Kobane, the Kurdish town just a few kilometres from Syria’s border with Turkey.

He warned, though, that the battle is still far from over – he said that the YPG need extra ammunition urgently, and are in need of heavier weaponry to match the arsenal used by IS.

Nassan also told MEE that the humanitarian situation remains perilous in the town, and predicted airstrikes in the coming hours in an attempt to consolidate the gains on the ground.

“Kobane has been besieged from three sides for months now, and the situation is extremely hard.

“They are in urgent need of almost everything, all essentials for daily life. Water, food, medicine are all in short supply.

“Women who need milk for their babies might search shops throughout the town and fail to find any. They are resorting to feeding their small children plain rice, and giving their babies tea with small pieces of bread in it.”

Has Islamic State expanded its arsenal?

News that Kobane could be about to be emptied of IS fighters comes as reports surface that the group has managed to capture and fly three fighter jets east of Aleppo in north-western Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Friday that IS are now training members to fly the jets, under the tutelage of former Iraqi air pilots under former dictator Saddam Hussein who have now defected to IS.

According to the monitor, run by Rami Abdulrahman, eyewitnesses have reported many flights by the planes, now under IS control, have been carried out in the skies above the captured al-Jarrah military airport east of Aleppo.

Until now IS has been restricted to ground operations, but this would be the first time that the group has the capacity to expand its attacks to the air.

Commenting on the reports, Iraqi analyst Sajad Jiyad told MEE that, while it is possible that IS has managed to seize small numbers of planes, they are unlikely to be able to fly them regularly.

“We cannot be sure that no planes have been taken – Iraq would be unwilling to advertise the fact that it has lost planes or helicopters to IS, and Syria would also want to avoid that.

“However, there are dozens of countries now flying their planes over Iraq and Syria, and military satellites are constantly searching for targets and scouring for IS movements.”

Even if IS are able to launch the planes, says Jiyad, they are unlikely to use them to bomb targets on the ground in Iraq or Syria.

“I don’t believe IS has managed to capture any missiles that they would be able to launch from a jet. I don’t think they will be able to go on a bombing campaign in the traditional way. However, they could perhaps start launching barrel bombs from the air.

In any case, launching such attacks would not be IS’s first priority, according to Jiyad, who says the psychological boost of controlling planes, after being routed out of Kobane, would be greater than any material advantage it might give them.

“The fact that they can say they have air force capability would be hugely important for them; it means that the coalition, the Iraqi army and whoever else is fighting them would be very wary, and execute operations against them with much more caution.

“IS would be able to transport troops by air or carry out drops to their forces holed up in various places.

“But even if they manage to get off the ground, it’s unlikely they would have a strike capability.”