Kobani

Kurdish fighters advanced on the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria on Saturday, pushing into the contested, refugee-packed Sinjar mountains and gaining ground in the embattled Syrian border town of Kobani after heavy clashes.

The Islamic State group launched an attack Saturday on the Syrian border town of Kobani from Turkey — a first in the ongoing siege, a Kurdish official and activists said.

Vice President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged from a nearly four-hour meeting Saturday, offering no indication that the U.S. and Turkey had bridged their differences about how to deal with Islamic State fighters or Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Iraqi Kurdish forces will only stay in Syria “temporarily” to help reinforce fellow Kurds fighting to defend the town of Kobani from militants with the Islamic State group, an Iraqi Kurdish politician said Sunday, adding that coalition airstrikes alone will not defeat the militant threat.

An official for the main Syrian Kurdish force says Iraqi peshmerga fighters are getting ready for the battle against Islamic State group extremists in the border town of Kobani.

A vanguard force of Iraqi peshmerga troops entered the embattled Syrian border town of Kobani from Turkey on Thursday, part of a larger group of 150 fighters that the Kurds hope will turn back an offensive by militants of the Islamic State group.

Iraqi peshmerga troops were cheered Wednesday by fellow Kurds in southeastern Turkey as the fighters slowly made their way toward the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani to try to break a siege there by Islamic State militants.

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.

Fighters from the Islamic State group launched Saturday a new offensive on the northern Syrian town of Kobani after shelling the area from their positions nearby, activists and a Kurdish official said.

Just over a year ago, Afshin Kobani was a teacher. Now, the Kurdish Syrian woman has traded the classroom for the front lines in the battle for Kobani, a town besieged by fighters from the Islamic State extremist group.

Lawmakers in Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdish region Wednesday authorized peshmerga forces to go to neighboring Syria and help fellow Kurds combat Islamic State militants in the key border town of Kobani, providing much-needed boots on the ground.

In its battle for the Syrian town of Kobani, the Islamic State group enjoys a key advantage: a supply of weapons, ammunition and fighters shuttling between Syria and Iraq.

Idriss Nassan, deputy head of Kobani’s foreign relations committee said coalition airstrikes were “effective” but not enough to defeat the jihadis.

Intensified U.S.-led airstrikes and a determined Kurdish military force on the ground appear to have had some success in halting advances by Islamic State fighters on a strategic Kurdish town near Syria’s border with Turkey — at least for now.

A barrage of U.S.-led airstrikes in and around the Syrian city of Kobani, including 39 over the past two days, has killed hundreds of Islamic State fighters and has stiffened the city’s Kurdish defenders, the Pentagon’s spokesman said Wednesday.

Kneeling over his brother’s fresh grave, Ali Mehmud gathered clumps of dirt in his hands, raised them to his lips to kiss them, then softly placed them back on the small mound.

The Obama administration’s promise to limit U.S. military engagement against Islamic State militants makes it difficult to accept Turkey’s terms for joining the fight in neighboring Syria.

Even as it prods Turkey to step up in the global fight against Islamic State militants, the United States is worried that Ankara might use military action to target Kurdish fighters who are the last line of defense against extremists trying to take over the Syrian border town of Kobani.