Kurdish insurgents deploy 1,000 fighters to stop ISIL siege of Syrian city

NICOSIA — The leading Kurdish insurgency movement has intervened to save its compatriots in Syria.

PKK fighters

The Kurdish Workers Party has sent nearly 1,000 fighters to stop an offensive by Al Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The party, known as PKK, sent fighters from Iraq through Turkey and into Syria to end the ISIL siege of the Kurdish city of Ain Al Arab.

“The Kurds are preparing for an assault by ISIL,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The British-based Syrian opposition group reported more than 800 PKK fighters in the area around Ain Al Arab. The deployment, ordered by the PKK leadership in northern Iraq, was said to have begun around July 10.

ISIL has sought to expand in Syria by capturing the Kurdish enclave along the border with Turkey. The Al Qaida-aligned movement, the biggest in the Middle East, has been bolstered by the recruitment of thousands of fighters from Islamic rebel militias in Syria as well as the capture of U.S.-origin combat platforms in northern Iraq.

Syrian Observatory said ISIL intends to conquer the entire Kurdish enclave as well as the Hasakeh province. The group said Ain Al Arab could decide the ISIL campaign.

Source: http://www.worldtribune.com/2014/07/17/pkk-deploys-1000-fighters-stop-isil-offensive-syria/