Heavy shelling rocked Kobane as Islamic State militants continued their assault on the besieged Syrian Kurdish border town. Islamic State] is now surrounding Kobane on three sides and is just one to two kilometres from the city centre," said Ismet Sheikh Hassan, a commander with the YPG Kurdish militia. A translator with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) inside Kobani said Islamic State forces were hitting it with tank and mortar fire.
Repeated requests to the Turkish army for assistance had gone unanswered. Turkish soldiers were out in force along the border on Saturday, firing volleys of tear gas to push back the crowd as dozens of men ran towards the crossing in an attempt to get back into Syria and help those in the besieged town. Turkey has shown no sign it will intervene to directly confront Islamic State on its borders. It sees the Kurdish armed groups defending Kobani as foes.
"Why are they attacking us when they could be helping the people of Kobane?" one protester asked, his eyes streaming from tear gas that hung in the air. "They are turning their backs on a massacre." The hundreds of Turkish troops and dozens of tanks and armoured personnel carriers stationed along this border showed no signs of intervening to stop Kobane falling.
Kurdish fighters on the front lines of battle say they have yet to receive the heavy weapons. Kurdish fighters, known as peshmerga, have had to rely on aging arms like the Soviet-era cannons. Two dozen peshmerga soldiers stood guard to secure the town and only one wore a flak jacket. "We don't have them," Special Forces commander Hakar Mohsen said.
