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Kurdish female fighter suicide bomber attacks IS in Syrian Kurdistan.
MURSITPINAR,— A female Kurdish fighter from the People's Protection Unites or YPG carried out a suicide bomb attack against Islamic State IS jihadists outside the embattled Syrian border town of Kobani on Sunday, a monitor said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the woman blew herself up at an Islamic State position east of the city, killing a number of jihadists who have surrounded Kobani and are battling to seize it.
"The operation caused deaths, but there is no confirmed number," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Her name in Kurdish was Dilar Gencxemis but she went under the nom-de-guerre of Arin Mirkan, the YPG said in a statement.
She was from the Syrian town of Afrin of Aleppo province of northern Syria, just south of the Turkish border.
With Kurdish fighters under increasing pressure from the IS jihadists seeking to seize Kobani, this is the first time a suicide bomber has been used by Kurdish forces in the conflict.
"I don't know her exact age but she was above 20. She was a fighter from the YPG," Mustafa Bali, a Kurdish official in Kobaie told an AFP correspondent in the Turkish border town of Suruc by telephone.
"She threw many grenades at IS insurgents. After that, she blew herself up," he said, adding that dozens of IS fighters were killed in her assault.
The YPG issued a statement carried by the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency, extolling Mirkan's bravery and indicating more suicide attacks were possible.
She killed dozens of gang members and demonstrated the YPG fighters' determined resistance," it said.
"If necessary, all YPG fighters will follow her example, and the gangs will not be allowed to achieve their aim of taking Kobani," it added.
He said it was the first reported instance of a female Kurdish fighter carrying out a suicide bombing against the Islamic State group, which has itself often favoured the tactic.
The suicide bombing by the Kurdish woman came just a couple of days after another 19-year-old Kurdish womanwww.Ekurd.netfighter shot herself down after finding herself surrounded by IS forces near Kobani.
IS began its advance on Kobani, Syria's third largest Kurdish town, on September 16, seeking to cement its grip over a long stretch of the Syria-Turkey border.
Kurdish fighters backed by US-led air strikes battled the Islamic State group for a key Syrian Kurdistan town Sunday.
IS fighters seized part of a strategic hill overlooking the town of Kobani late on Saturday, a monitor said, but their progress was slowed by new strikes from the coalition of Washington and Arab allies.
A Kobani local official, Idris Nahsen, said IS fighters were just one kilometre (less than a mile) from the town and that air strikes alone were not enough to stop them.
He complained of a lack of coordination between the coalition and Kurdish fighters on the ground.
The border town of Kobani has become a crucial battleground in the international fight against IS,.
Fighting raged around Kobani as the jihadists pressed their nearly three-week siege of the town, said the Britain-based Observatory.
New coalition strikes
"IS succeeded on Saturday night in taking the southern part of the Mishtenur hill," Abdel Rahman told AFP.
He said there were seven new coalition strikes against IS positions late Saturday and that the air raids were hindering the jihadist advance.
In a statement, US Central Command said the US military carried out three air strikes in Syria on Saturday, while fighter jets, bombers and helicopters were used in six assaults against IS in Iraq on Sunday.
The sound of shelling echoed from Kobani town -- also known as Ain al-Arab -- as warplanes roared overhead Sunday, an AFP reporter just across the border in Turkey said.
One mortar round hit a house on Turkish territory just a few kilometres (miles) from Kobani, wounding five people, medical sources said.
The source of the fire was unclear, but residents of two small border villages were ordered evacuated as a precaution.
Tear gas was fired to clear the border zone around the Mursitpinar crossing, the main vantage point for watching the fighting for reporters and Kurds.
Sunday's toll was not known, but the Observatory, which relies on a network of local sources, said at least 33 IS fighters and 23 of the town's Kurdish defenders were killed on Saturday.
IS began its advance on Kobani on September 16, seeking to cement its grip over a long stretch of the Syria-Turkey border.
The offensive prompted a mass exodus from the town and surrounding countryside, with some 186,000 people fleeing into Turkey.
Extremist Sunni Muslim group IS has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq, declaring a "caliphate" in June and imposing its harsh interpretation of Islamic law.
Widespread atrocities
The group has been accused of carrying out widespread atrocities including mass executions, abductions, torture and forcing women into slavery.
It has also released videos of the on-camera beheadings of two US journalists, a British aid worker and on Friday of Henning, a 47-year-old British volunteer driver who went to Syria with a Muslim charity.
After first launching strikes against IS in Iraq in August, Washington has built a coalition of allies to wage an air campaign against the group.
Britain and France have joined the strikes in Iraq, while an F16 war plane carried out Belgium's first bombing raid there on Sunday.
Dutch and Australian fighter jets flew their first missions over Iraq on Sunday but did not launch any air strikes.
Five Arab nations -- Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- have meanwhile taken part in the Syria raids.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Paris will "increase" the rate of air patrols over Iraq, branding IS "a terrorist army".
In Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah called for joint efforts to fight extremism "and defeat it because it has nothing to do with Islam"
Turkey's parliament last week authorised the government to join the campaign, but so far no plans for military action have been announced.
Elsewhere, the Observatory said Syrian rebels on Sunday seized a strategic hilltop in the southern province of Daraa after a two-day battle in which 30 regime forces and 29 rebels were killed.
news agency, AFP
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