Kurd fighters repulse new IS assault on Syria town

Beirut: Kurdish fighters held off a fresh assault by jihadists of the Islamic State group on the embattled Syrian border town of Kobane overnight, a monitoring group said on Monday.
The attack came after a Kurdish female fighter blew herself up at an IS position on Sunday, using the jihadists’ own tactic against them, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
IS militants attempted to storm the town from both east and west of a strategic hill to the south but Kurdish fighters repulsed the attack, said the Britain-based group, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria.
Fierce clashes raged through the night but abated on Monday morning, with sporadic IS mortar fire against the town, the group’s director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
IS jihadists have been trying for nearly three weeks to seize the town, also known as Ain al-Arab, in a bid to cement their grip over a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.
But so far, Kurdish fighters have managed to keep the jihadists out of the town, with the backing of some US-led air strikes.
IS has seized much of the area around Kobane, however, surrounding it from three sides and triggering an exodus of some 186,000 refugees into neighbouring Turkey.
The fighting killed at least 19 Kurdish fighters and 27 IS jihadists Sunday, the Observatory said. (AFP)