Kurds describe fierce battles on streets of Kobani

Holed up in an industrial area of squat, concrete buildings on Kobani’s eastern edges, the outgunned Kurds could do little to repel the attack, recalled Dalil Boras, one of the defenders during the Oct. 6 assault. The Islamic State group’s firepower proved too much, so the Kurds withdrew through the gray streets to a tree-lined park, ceding a foothold in the town to the extremist fighters, who promptly raised two black flags over their newly conquered territory.

A week later, the Kurdish men and women of the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, are still holding out, if barely, with a helping hand from more than 20 airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State positions.

They have been battered by tanks shells and mortars, and picked off by snipers using American-made rifles. They have no answer for the heavy weapons that Islamic State fighters have looted from Iraqi and Syrian army bases. And while they are slowly yielding ground, they so far have prevented the town from being overrun, defending it zealously with little more than light weapons, booby-traps and a fervent belief in their cause.

Along the way, the predominantly Kurdish town along Syria’s border with Turkey has been transformed from a dusty backwater into a symbol of resistance for Kurds around the world. It also has grabbed the international media spotlight, which has helped turn the defense of Kobani into a very public test for the American-led international effort to roll back and ultimately destroy the Islamic State group.

The battle itself is now playing out in Kobani's streets and alleyways. Kurdish fighters and civilians who have recently fled describe a gritty scene inside the town. Both of the warring sides have knocked holes in walls to move between buildings — a tactic employed in urban fighting for decades. On cross streets, blankets have been hung to limit exposure to snipers. Rubble litters the streets. Smoke hangs in the air. The few remaining civilians have sought shelter in basements.

As the fighting has ground down in the thick of the town, the front lines in some places have narrowed to just a few yards, said Aladeen Ali Kor, a Kobani policeman now volunteering in a refugee camp in the Turkish town of Suruc while he recovers from a shrapnel wound to the back of his neck.

“There are some places where you’re basically across the street from them. Like from here to the back of the gas station there,” he said, pointing across the busy main road in Suruc. “Fighters on both sides yell and taunt each other. We say we’ll never let you in. They yell at us that they’ll never let us out alive.”

For now at least, the heart of Kobani remains in Kurdish hands, although their grip appears tenuous at best. With so much attention on the town, neither side can relent. Activists say the Islamic State group has rushed in reinforcements, while small numbers of Kurds continue to sneak across the border to join the fight.

One of them is Boras, 19, who recently rejoined the fighting after a short break Reached by telephone, he said he had slipped back into Kobani and returned to the front. Having already lost his father and a brother fighting the Islamic State, he said he sees no alternative but to make his stand there.

“Either Kobani will fall and I will die, or we will win,” he said.