The Kurdish-held city of Kobani in northern Syria was back in ISIS’ crosshairs on Thursday, as its militants launched attacks including two vehicle bomb blasts near the Syrian-Turkish border.
At the same time, ISIS fighters also attacked Syrian regime forces Thursday in the northeastern city of al-Hasakah, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group.
Analysts said the dual offensive appeared to be an effort by ISIS to divert the attention of the Kurdish security forces, or YPG, after a series of gains by the Kurds near ISIS’ self-declared capital in Syria, Raqqa.
Idriss Nasan, a spokesman for the Kurds in Kobani who updated CNN by phone from the city, described a complex attack Thursday morning in which ISIS militants infiltrated the city from the east and west in disguise.
“They were wearing YPG uniforms so when people saw them they did not fear them, and they (ISIS) opened fire. Many civilians lost their lives,” he said.
Eyewitnesses said some of the gunmen spoke Kurdish and knocked on doors telling locals to come out. “People rushed out and were killed,” he said.
By 2 p.m., only a few ISIS fighters remained holed up in a house in the city and the YPG was trying to capture or kill them, Nasan said. He added that it was not clear how many ISIS militants were there or how many Kurdish civilians had died.
A car was used for one of the vehicle bomb attacks and a motorcycle for the other, Nasan said. He said one came from the south and the other may have come from the north. However, he cast doubt on the idea it could have penetrated the city from the Turkish side of the border, which is well guarded.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of people were reported killed and injured in the clashes in Kobani.
The group, citing its own sources, also said the ISIS fighters sneaked into Kobani by disguising themselves in Kurdish uniforms.
The shattered city was wrested from ISIS’ control by Kurdish YPG forces early this year after months of bitter fighting.
Checkpoint car bomb
In al-Hasakah, about 270 kilometers (170 miles) east of Kobani, heavy clashes are underway, the SOHR said, and the Syrian air force is conducting airstrikes in the area.
ISIS militants detonated at least one car bomb at a Syrian military checkpoint and have taken control of some neighborhoods in the southern part of the city, according to the group.
The SOHR reported at least 30 killed among regime forces and 20 dead from ISIS’ ranks. CNN cannot independently confirm the casualty numbers.
These ISIS offensives come in the wake of recent losses by the terror group in the Syrian cities of Ain Issa and Tal Abyad in the ISIS stronghold province of Raqqa, where Kurdish forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, were able to beat back the militants.
Activists and a Kurdish official told CNN on Wednesday that ISIS was reportedly digging trenches and calling on reinforcements to prepare for a possible assault by Kurdish forces on the city of Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in Syria.
ISIS moved a convoy of nearly 100 military vehicles packed with arms, ammunition and fighters from the countryside east of Raqqa to one of the terror group’s bases within the city, said Rami Abdelrahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Reports of the apparent fortification of Raqqa came just a day after Kurdish YPG forces backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes wrested control of the town of Ain Issa from ISIS, the SOHR reported.
That tactical victory put ISIS’ formidable rivals just 55 kilometers (about 34 miles) away from the city of Raqqa.
‘Classic’ strategy
Analyst Charles Lister of the Brookings Doha Center said via Twitter that the latest ISIS offensive appeared to be “classic” ISIS strategy — a three-pronged assault on Kobani and attack on al-Hasakah to divert the Kurds from Raqqa.
Lister added that reports ISIS fighters disguised themselves to gain entry to Kobani were an “important signal of intent: not just to divert but instill paranoia.”
Strategically, Kobani is very valuable. It sits on the border with Turkey and its seizure would give ISIS a complete swath of land between Raqqa and Turkey.
ISIS took the city of Kobani last fall after a brutal back-and-forth battle but finally abandoned it in January in the face of a Kurdish offensive backed by an extensive campaign of airstrikes by the U.S.-led international coalition.