Kobani carnage: Daesh kills 145

BEIRUT: Daesh fighters killed at least 145 civilians in an attack on the Syrian town of Kobani and a nearby village, in what a monitoring group described on Friday as the second worst massacre carried out by the hard-line group in Syria.

Fighting between the Kurdish YPG militia and Daesh terrorists who infiltrated the town at the Turkish border on Thursday continued into a second day, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group and a Kurdish official said.
A separate Daesh assault on government-held areas of the northeastern city of Hassaka was reported to have forced 60,000 people to flee their homes, the UN said, warning as many as 200,000 people may eventually try to flee.
The attack on the predominantly Kurdish town of Kobani and the nearby village of Brakh Bootan marked the biggest single massacre of civilians by Daesh in Syria since it killed hundreds of members of the Sunni Sheitaat tribe last year, Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory, said.
He said 146 civilians had been killed. Kurdish officials said at least 145 had died.
The assault included at least three suicide car bombs. The dead included the elderly, women and children, he said.
Daesh men were reported to number in the dozens and entered the town in five cars disguised as members of the YPG and Syrian rebel groups.
In their other assault on Friday, Daesh fighters clashed with Syrian government forces in the south of Hassaka for a second day and shells hit areas in the center, the Observatory said.
It appeared that Daesh was also fanning out toward the southeast of the city, which is divided into zones run separately by the Syrian government and a Kurdish administration that oversees the YPG.
In the latest battles, Daesh has picked targets where it is difficult for the US-led alliance to provide air support to those fighting on the ground. In Kobani, aerial bombardment risks civilian casualties in residential areas targeted in the attack.