A convoy of peshmerga vehicles is welcomed by Turkish Kurds at Habur border gate, which separates Turkey from Iraq, near the town of Silopi in southeastern Turkey on Wednesday. Iraqi peshmerga fighters arrived in southeastern Turkey early on Wednesday ahead of their planned deployment to the Syrian town of Kobane to help fellow Kurds repel an Islamic State advance.
Reuters/Sanliurfa, Turkey/Beirut
Iraqi peshmerga fighters arrived in southeastern Turkey on Wednesday en route for the Syrian town of Kobane to try to help fellow Kurds break an Islamic State siege which has defied US-led air strikes.
Kobane, nestled on the border with Turkey, has been under assault from Islamic State militants for more than a month and its fate has become a key test of the US-led coalition's ability to combat the Sunni insurgents.
Weeks of air strikes on Islamic State positions around Kobane and the deaths of hundreds of their fighters have failed to break the siege. Syrian Kurds and their international allies hope the arrival of the peshmerga, along with heavier weapons, can turn the tide.
A Turkish Airlines plane touched down in the southeastern city of Sanliurfa at around 1.15 am amid tight security, a Reuters correspondent said. A convoy of white buses escorted by armoured jeeps and police cars left the airport shortly afterwards.
"They will be in our town today," Adham Basho, a member of the Syrian Kurdish National Council from Kobane, said of the peshmerga, confirming that a group of between 90 and 100 fighters had arrived in Sanliurfa overnight.
A separate group of peshmerga is travelling to the Turkish border region by land with heavier weapons. A Kurdish television channel showed footage of what it said was a convoy of peshmerga vehicles loaded with weapons en route to the area.
Saleh Muslim, co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said the peshmerga were expected to enter Kobane - known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic - later on Wednesday and would bring heavy arms with them.
"It's mainly artillery, or anti-armour, anti-tank weapons," he said, adding the equipment should help Syrian Kurdish fighters fend off Islamic State insurgents who have used armoured vehicles and tanks in their assault.
Islamic State has caused international alarm by capturing large expanses of Iraq and Syria.
Fighters from the Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda's official affiliate in the Syrian civil war, have meanwhile seized territory from moderate rebels in recent days, expanding their control into one of the few areas of northern Syria not already held by hardline Islamists.
In Iraq, security forces said they had advanced to within 2 km of the city of Baiji on Wednesday in a new offensive to retake the country's biggest oil refinery that has been besieged since June by Islamic State.
Islamic State fighters have threatened to massacre Kobane's defenders in an assault which has sent almost 200,000 Syrian Kurds fleeing to Turkey, and triggered a call to arms from Kurds across the region.
At least a dozen shells fired by Islamic State fighters fell on the town overnight as clashes with the main Syrian Kurdish armed group, the YPG, continued, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
It said preparations were being made at a border gate which Islamic State fighters have repeatedly tried to capture for the arrival of the peshmerga, while YPG and Islamic State forces exchanged fire in gun battles on the southern edge of the town.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Tuesday that air strikes alone would not be enough to push back the insurgents and that only the peshmerga and moderate Syrian rebel forces could oust Islamic State from Kobane.
