Peshmerga forces ready to fight Islamic State militants in Syria

Damascus: Preparations are currently underway at the predominantly Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane for receiving Peshmerga forces who arrived in southeastern Turkey early on Wednesday to fight alongside other Kurdish groups against the Islamic State (IS) militants. [caption id=“attachment_1778273” align=“alignleft” width=“359”]  Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. Reuters[/caption] Preparations to receive an expected number of 150 Peshmerga fighters are going on at the border crossing that separates Kobane, also known as Ayn al-Arab, from the Turkish border, Xinhua reported citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The observatory said the IS fighters repeatedly tried to capture that border crossing in vain. The Peshmerga forces, sent by the Kurdish regional government in Iraq, will cross into Syria later in the day to help their Syrian Kurds brethren in their fight against the IS extremists, a day after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Iraqi Kurdish forces can cross Turkey’s territory into Syria at any time to fight the IS. Meanwhile, the observatory said clashes between the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the IS militants continued in the al-Hurriya Square near the cultural centre in Kobane Wednesday, adding that the IS fired at least 12 mortar shells into the city since early Wednesday. It said the US-led anti-terror coalition on Wednesday struck an IS position near the al-Hal marketplace in Kobane, stopping short of giving more details. The IS unleashed its wide-scale offensive against Kobane 15 September in a bid to capture the city, which would enable the radical Sunni group to link its self-declared capital of al-Raqqa province with Ayn al-Arab and stretch its territory to areas bordering Turkey. The IS has captured more than 300 villages around the city and managed to storm parts of it after forcing over 160,000 people to flee toward neighbouring Turkey. IANS