Kurdish Town 'Practically Empty' as Jihadists Press Assault

Nearly all residents of the embattled Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane and surrounding area have fled an advance by Islamic State group jihadists, a monitor said Thursday.

"Some 80 to 90 percent of residents of Kobane and nearby villages have fled for fear of an imminent assault by the Islamic State group," said the director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman.

"We are looking at a total of some 300,000 displaced people and refugees in Turkey. Kobane is practically empty of its residents now," Abdel Rahman told AFP.

IS fighters launched a major offensive against Kobane on September 16 and have advanced to within less than a kilometer (mile) of the eastern and southeastern edges of the town.

"Kobane town is now completely surrounded by IS" except for the northern side of the border town leading into Turkey, Abdel Rahman said.

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia have been fighting the jihadists' bid to break into Kobane, which in Arabic is known as Ain al-Arab, but are poorly equipped and massively outgunned.

Kurdish leaders have appealed to the U.S.-led coalition battling IS to provide air support to the town's defenders. There were strikes on Wednesday, but they failed to stop the jihadists' advance.

On Thursday, local activist Mustafa Ebdi criticized Washington and its mainly Gulf Arab allies carrying out strikes in Syria for their apparent failure to stop the IS advance.

"The international community has abandoned us," Ebdi said via the Internet.