Too soon to say 'mission accomplished' in Kobane: US official

Kurdish fighters' expulsion of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) forces from the  Syrian town of Kobane helped stop the momentum of the Islamist group but is not a significant turning point in the overall campaign, a senior State Department official said on Jan. 27.
   
The setback for ISIL in the war-ravaged town near the Turkish border did not mean "anyone is declaring mission accomplished" in the international campaign against the group, that has taken over parts of Syria and Iraq, the official said.
   
U.S. air strikes in liaison with Kurdish ground troops and Iraqi Kurd reinforcements allowed in from Turkey tipped the battle the Kurds' way, and the ISIL's appetite for the fight had been undermined by heavy death tolls.
   
"About 90 percent of the town has been retaken and ISIL, whether on order or the fact that they are just breaking ranks, are withdrawing from the town," the official told reporters, employing a frequently used acronym for the al Qaeda offshoot.
   
"The entire notion of this organization that is on the march and the inevitable expansion and inevitable momentum has been halted at Kobane," added the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
   
"The number of foreign fighters killed in Kobani is hugely significant," the official said, adding it was "in the four figures."
   
The militants had launched an assault on Kobane in September using heavy weapons seized in Iraq and forcing tens of thousands of people over the border into Turkey.
   
The official said some of ISIL's best foreign fighters from Chechnya, Canada, Australia and Belgium made up the majority of militants fighting for the city, which became a focal point in the campaign in northern Syria.
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