Kurds claim Kobane clear of Isis

Despite Kurdish gains in Kobane, Isis forces continue to surround the shattered town. Pictures / AP

Kurdish militias celebrate success after 4-month battle but US says jihadists still control parts of Syrian town

Kurdish militias claimed to have driven Isis (Islamic State) jihadists from the Syrian town of Kobane, after an intense four-month battle that killed thousands but captured the world's imagination.

"Congratulations on the liberation of Kobane, to humanity, to Kurdistan, and to the Kobane people," Polat Can, spokesman of the Kurdish People's Protection Units, the YPG, said.

Photographs from the town showed lines of Kurdish men in battle fatigues dancing hand-in-hand against a backdrop of shattered buildings.

Other fighters from the YPG, the largest Syria-based Kurdish fighting group, said they were picking their way slowly through the eastern part of Kobane, fearful of booby-traps left by Isis. Washington, which has been watching the battle closely and providing air support to the Kurds, said parts of the town remained in Isis hands.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said fighting had all but ceased in the town. Isis, however, controls large parts of northern Syria, and continues to surround the town, which lies on the Turkish border.

They have been pushed back only to where they were in September. It is, however, a blow to their prestige and may mark the first major strategic error by the group. After seeing the attention the battle for Kobane was receiving in the West, they poured in fighters, who became sitting ducks for coalition air raids. About 1200 jihadists are estimated to have been killed in the town.

However, its conquest was marginal to Isis' wider aims. In a statement yesterday, the group's chief spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, made no mention of the loss of Kobane but said that air strikes had "made us stronger".

He also urged more attacks in the West itself.

Kurdish dilemma

The battle for Kobane also presents a longer-term dilemma for the West. The YPG are the Syrian branch of the Turkey-based Kurdish group PKK, a proscribed terrorist body in the West for its long war with Ankara.

It was backed in the fight by the Peshmerga, the army of the semi-autonomous Kurdish Autonomous Region in Iraq. Their joint victory will encourage dreams of Kurdish unity, while the West insists on respecting Iraqi, Turkish and ultimately even Syrian territorial integrity. Western diplomats in particular fear further steps to independence in Iraq will send the country closer to collapse. The victory's significance was not lost on the Kurds, who celebrated wildly from Turkey to Syria.