MIDDLE EAST

Mass Killings by ISIS Fighters in Syrian Kurdish Town

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Graphic: Where ISIS Has Directed and Inspired Attacks Around the World 

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Islamic State fighters who sneaked into the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani on the Turkish border killed more than 150 people there and in nearby villages, Kurdish activists and a monitoring group said Friday.
If that toll is confirmed, the attack would be one of the largest mass killings by the jihadists in Syria since they started seizing territory there for their self-declared caliphate, which stretches over the border into Iraq.
Kobani, known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, carries heavy symbolism both to the Islamic State and to some of the forces fighting against it in Syria. For months last year, Kurdish fighters defended the town from repeated attacks by the Islamic State, while a military coalition led by the United States heavily bombed the group’s fighters from the air. In January, the Islamic State finally lost, in what was considered a blow to its effort to portray itself as invincible.
But this week, ISIS struck back, when a group of fighters disguised as local rebels sneaked into the town at dawn on Thursday, setting off car bombs and shooting civilians in the street.
Kurdish militias responded, killing dozens of Islamic State fighters. Residents began to collect and bury their kin on Friday.
“The Daesh attack was a suicide mission,” said Redur Xelil, a spokesman for the Kurdish militiamen, told Reuters, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “Its aim wasn’t to take the city but to create terror.”
Activists in the town on Friday described the painful process of finding dead bodies in the streets and going from house to house to collect others for burial.
“From yesterday morning at 4 a.m., Daesh sneaked in and started killing in their silent way,” said Simyar Sheikhi, a Kurdish fighter reached by phone.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict from Britain through contacts in Syria, said that at least 138 bodies had been found in Kobani and 26 others nearby. Dozens of Islamic State fighters were killed, too, the group said.
Farther east, clashes between Islamic State fighters and government troops in the city of Hasaka had displaced 60,000 people, the United Nations said, warning that as many as 200,000 eventually may flee.
The Islamic State stormed into the southern part of the city on Thursday, engaging in clashes with government troops and associated militias.
Hwaida Saad and Maher Samaan contributed reporting from Beirut, and Karam Shoumali from Istanbul.
A version of this article appears in print on June 27, 2015, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Mass Killings by ISIS Fighters in Syrian Kurdish Town. Order Reprints|  Today's Paper|Subscribe