Kurdish fighters seize strategic Islamic State stronghold in Syria

PanARMENIAN.Net - Kurdish fighters seized a strategic Islamic State stronghold in Syria Friday, Feb 27 in a move that could impede jihadist movements near the border with Iraq, where they also control large swathes of territory, according to Agence France Presse.

Meanwhile, the United States and Turkey are to begin training and equipping moderate Syrian rebels for the fight against President Bashar al-Assad and IS.

The main Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) said its fighters had liberated Tal Hamis and surrounding communities at the request of residents "who wanted to get rid of these terrorists and mercenaries".

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "the jihadists retreated without much resistance after Kurdish forces, backed by Arab fighters, returned to Tal Hamis."

The Kurds now occupy a strip of land linking the Hasakeh provincial town, which has been under IS control for more than a year, with the Iraqi border.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said it was "one of the most important strongholds" of the group in the region.

The Kurdish advance comes after days of fighting in which YPG forces have taken some 103 villages and hamlets.

Since the clashes began last Saturday, at least 175 IS fighters have been killed by the Kurds and in air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition.

Additionally, 30 fighters from the YPG and Arab units fighting alongside them have been killed. Among the dead was an Australian, the first Westerner to die in a Kurdish unit in Syria.

The Pentagon said the coalition had carried out several air strikes in Hasakeh province on Thursday, including three near Tal Hamis.

The fighting came as Kurdish forces continued to battle IS after an offensive elsewhere in the province in which the jihadists kidnapped at least 220 Assyrian Christians.