Kurdish ground forces, helped by U.S. and allied air support, have retaken the Syrian town of Kobane from Islamic State militants, U.S. Lieutenant-General James Terry said on Saturday.
Supporting what Kurdish forces said earlier this week, Terry, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force that has been leading air strikes against Islamic State, said in a statement issued by the U.S. military: "Kurdish ground forces, supported by our air component, were successful in retaking the town of Kobane."
A monitoring group and Syrian state media reported Kurdish fighters took full control of Kobane on Monday, but on Tuesday a U.S. official said the town on the Turkish border had not been fully retaken.
Saturday's statement said Kurdish forces had pushed Islamic State out of Kobane on Tuesday.
"Kurdish forces continue to expand their positions to surrounding areas outside of Kobane by seizing key terrain and access routes," it said.
The United States and allies have launched more than 700 air strikes against Islamic State in and around Kobane since August 8, 2014, destroying more than 280 fighting positions, nearly 100 buildings, more than 60 technical vehicles and other equipment, it said.
Islamic State admits defeat
Meanwhile, IS acknowledged for the first time that its fighters have been defeated in the Syrian town of Kobane and vowed to attack the town again.
In a video released by the pro-IS Aamaq News Agency late Friday, two fighters said the airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition were the main reason why IS fighters were forced to withdraw from Kobane. One fighter vowed to defeat the main Kurdish militia in Syria, the People’s Protection Units known as the YPG.
On Monday, activists and Kurdish officials said the town was almost cleared of IS fighters, who once held nearly half of Kobane.
An Associated Press video from inside the town showed widespread destruction, streets littered with debris and abandoned neighborhoods. The video also showed a new cemetery with fresh graves.
The town’s famous Freedom Square, with a statue of an eagle spreading its wings, stood intact in the middle of the destruction. The square is near the so-called Kurdish security quarter an eastern district where Kurdish militiamen maintained security buildings and offices, and which was occupied by IS fighters for about two months until they were forced out earlier in January.
In the newly released IS video, the militant fighters acknowledged that they have been driven from the town.
“A while ago we retreated a bit from Ayn al-Islam because of the bombardment and the killing of some brothers,” said one masked fighter, using the group’s preferred name for Kobane. He spoke Arabic with a north African accent.
The failure to capture and hold Kobane was a major blow to the extremists. Their hopes for an easy victory dissolved into a costly siege under withering airstrikes by coalition forces and an assault by Kurdish militiamen.
The U.S.-led campaign aims to push back the jihadi organisation after it took over about a third of Iraq and Syria and declared the captured territory a new caliphate.
Now Kurdish officials are hailing the retaking of Kobane as an important step toward rolling back the Islamic State group’s territorial gains.
“Kobane Canton is a representative of the resistance against terrorism in the world,” said senior Syrian Kurdish official in Kobane, Anwar Muslim. “We hope that the world will support us to come through our struggle against IS.”
Meanwhile the IS fighters vowed that their defeat in Kobane will not weaken them.
“The Islamic State will stay. Say that to (U.S. President Barack) Obama,” said the fighter, pointing his finger toward destruction on the edge of Kobane.
The fighters both laid blame for their defeat on the coalition air campaign, seemingly downplaying the role played by Kurdish militiamen whom they refer to as “rats.”
Another IS fighter, also speaking in Arabic, said while standing on a road with a green sign with “Ayn al-Islam” sprayed on it- “The warplanes did not leave any construction. They destroyed everything, so we had to withdraw and the rats advanced.”
“The warplanes were bombarding us night and day. They bombarded everything, even motorcycles,” the fighter said.
IS launched an offensive on the Kobane region in mid-September capturing more than 300 Kurdish villages and parts of the town. As a result of the airstrikes and stiff Kurdish resistance, IS began retreating a few weeks ago, losing more than 1,000 fighters, according to activists.
More than 200,000 Kurds were forced from their homes. Many fled to neighboring Turkey.
Earlier this week, Kurdish officials said YPG fighters have launched a counterattack to retake some of the surrounding villages around Kobane, many of which remain in IS hands.
