Kurdish militants attack IS in northern Syria

Kurdish militants and rebel groups on Thursday captured 19 villages in the countryside of Syria's northern al-Raqqa province, the de facto capital of the Islamic State (IS) militants, a monitoring group reported.

The attack comes as part of the counter-offensive the Kurdish militants and allied rebel groups unleashed in the predominantly Kurdish city of Ayn al-Arab, or Kobane, in northern Syria against the IS fighters, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based watchdog group.

The Observatory said the Kurdish fighters recently recaptured 242 villages that had previously fallen to the IS in the vicinity of Kobane, including the 19 villages in al-Raqqa province.

The IS unleashed their attack against Kobane late last year, but the Kurdish militants of the People Protection Units (YPG), and allied militants, backed by the strikes of the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition, succeeded to dislodge the rebels out of the city and most of its countryside in January of this year.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, the head of the Observatory, said the U.S. -led coalition played a significant role in the advancement of the Kurdish militants and other rebel groups.

He said the coalition strikes the IS positions, forcing the radical group's fighters to retreat and allowing the Kurdish fighters to advance.

The Kurdish fighters are just 25 kilometers away from the border town of Tal Abyad, which connects al-Raqqa with the Turkish borders, said the Observatory. Enditem