Kobanî

Whenever you ask diplomatic sources about U.S.-Turkey relations, the kind of answer you get is usually about the ?absence of any problems.?

At least three people, including a policeman, have been injured after an explosion near Turkey?s border with Syria on Feb. 13, Do?an News Agency reported.

The explosion occurred near a police checkpoint at the entrance of the Suruç district of the southeastern Turkish province of ?anl?urfa.

Syrian Kurdish forces have recaptured more than a third of the villages around Kobane from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) since routing the jihadists from the town a fortnight ago, a monitor said Feb. 8.
      

Kurdish militants have wrestled control of 65 villages in Kobane's countryside from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) control since Jan. 26 in northern Syria, according to a Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) source.

While 523 Democratic Union Party (PYD) members fighting in Kobane against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were treated in Turkey, the total cost of the clashes in Kobane for Turkey was around 1 billion Turkish Liras.

The treated members of the PYD include senior level managers and 65 members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Syrian Kurdish militias, who drove out Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants from the center of Kobane after 134 days of battle, are launching operations into the villages surrounding the Syrian border town in a bid to clear the last frontiers of the battle from the Islamists.

Despite praising the defeat of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in the Syrian town of Kobane on the Turkish border, the U.S. has rejected a visa request from Salih Müslim, the leader of the party behind the Kurdish militia who fought against the jihadists.

As Kobane residents, some 200,000 who fled to Turkey due to the attacks of jihadist militants, await returning to the war-torn city after the 134th day of clashes, a senior leader of the Kurdish forces has thanked Turkey for its efforts. 

Rubble strewn streets, gutted buildings: the ferocious battle for the Syrian border town of Kobane has wrought massive destruction, according to a team of AFP journalists who arrived on the scene Jan. 28.
      

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.