Fighting continued in the northern Syrian town of Kobani Tuesday, with the familiar sounds of gunfire and jets flying overhead signaling ongoing efforts to keep Islamic State militants from seizing the area from Kurdish forces.

Cameras positioned just across the border in Turkey captured what appeared to be two massive blasts from airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition that has been targeting the Islamic State group in Syria for more than a month.

The video includes the sound of a passing jet, then a massive explosion that sends a plume of thick smoke into the sky.

The Kurdish fighters in Kobani, also knowns as Ayn al-Arab, are expecting the arrival of peshmerga forces from Iraq’s Kurdistan region as early as this week.

Turkish troops

On Monday, Turkey Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his country cannot be expected to send troops to defend Kobani and only Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Syria’s own moderate opposition can save it.

No coalition allies have publicly called on Turkey to intervene militarily, but images of Turkish troops standing by as Islamic State fighters advanced just across the border have drawn criticism.

U.S. warplanes have been bombing Islamic State positions near Kobani for weeks, but airstrikes alone will not be enough to repel the insurgents, Davutoglu said.

“Saving Kobani, retaking Kobani and some area around Kobani from ISIS, there’s a need for a military operation,” he said, referring to another name for the Islamist group, in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday.

But Davutoglu made it clear that neither Turkey nor Western allies would commit troops.

“If they (international coalition) don’t want to send their ground troops, how can they expect Turkey to send Turkish ground troops with the same risks on our border,” Davutoglu said.

Turkish officials have rebuffed international criticism over their reluctance to do more to help Kobani’s beleaguered Kurdish defenders, whom they say are linked to the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought a decades long insurgency against the Turkish state.

Increased security

Also Tuesday, Turkey ramped up security along the Syrian border a day after Islamic State militants tried to seize a border post on the Turkish frontier but were repulsed by Kurdish fighters.

The post links Kobani in Syria with Mursitpinar in Turkey.

Losing the border gate would be a major blow to the Kurdish fighters defending Kobani, because it is the only official way for the fighters to cross into Turkey from the border town.

Meanwhile, coalition jets have also conducted airstrikes in neighboring Iraq in their bid to help Iraqi forces reclaim territory from the Sunni extremists who swept through large areas of the northern and western part of the country in July and August.

Some material for this report came from Reuters.
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