IRAQI TROOPS RETAKE SUNNI TOWN
Iraqi soldiers backed by Shiite militiamen retook control Sunday of a Sunni town seized previously by Islamic militants, said an Iraqi official and state-run TV, a rare victory for Iraqi security forces that have been battling to regain areas lost to the militants.
The provincial official said that government forces entered Jurf al-Sakhar, which fell to fighters from the Islamic State group in late July.
Col. Muthana Khalid, spokesman of the Babil provincial police, said the battle over the town left dozens of militants dead or wounded.
The town, 30 miles south of the capital, is part of a predominantly Sunni ribbon that runs just south of Baghdad.
— Associated Press
A Syrian activist group said Sunday that the death toll in 40 days of fighting in and around the northern Syrian border town of Kobani has reached 815, as Kurdish fighters battled Muslim militants for a hill west of the town.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll includes 21 Kurdish civilians and 302 fighters with the main Kurdish force known as the Peoples Protection Units, or YPG. It said 481 fighters with the Islamic State group have been killed since the battles began.
Islamic State fighters launched a wide offensive on Kobani in mid-September, capturing dozens of Kurdish villages and entering parts of the town. The attack has displaced more than 200,000 people who crossed for safety into Turkey.
On Saturday, the militants launched an attack on a Kurdish-held neighborhood in Kobani without succeeding in advancing, the Observatory said. It added that seven Islamic State fighters were killed, as well as several YPG fighters.
The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that five airstrikes near Kobani — conducted Saturday and Sunday — destroyed seven Islamic State vehicles and a building belonging to the militants.
Last week, the U.S. Central Command said its forces conducted more than 135 airstrikes against the militants in and around Kobani, killing hundreds of militant fighters.
Idriss Nassan, a Kurdish official from Kobani, said the fighting concentrated Sunday on the Izaa hill west, of the town. That area is close to the strategic Tel Shair hill, which overlooks parts of the town. Kurdish fighters recently regained control of the Tel Shair hill.
“The (YPG) units are advancing slowly on the eastern and southern fronts,” Nassan said. “The situation is relatively calm compared with yesterday.”
The Observatory said YPG fighters attacked two Islamic State vehicles west of Kobani on Sunday, inflicting casualties among jihadis.
Also Sunday, state news agency SANA reported that rebels in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo fired two mortar shells, killing an adult and a child, and wounding several others when they hit a school.
The Observatory said one of the shells hit the Hoda Shaarawi school, while the second fell in front of it.
Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial capital, has seen heavy fighting since rebels seized part of the city in 2012.
In the central province of Homs, a government air raid on the town of Talbiseh late Saturday killed 18 people, including 10 children and three women, the Observatory said. It added that 16 of the dead were from the same family.
Talbiseh was one of the first towns to rise up against President Bashar Assad’s government after the uprising that later turned into a civil war began in March 2011. The war has killed more than 190,000 people, according to the U.N.
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