Syrian refugees flock into Turkey as Kurds head out to fight militants

As more than 45,000 Syrians fled to Turkey, hundreds of Kurdish fighters have crossed back into neighbouring Syria to defend a Kurdish area under attack by Islamic State militants, activists said Saturday. Fighting there led another prominent Kurdish official to appeal for international assistance in their battle against the extremists. The movement of hundreds of Kurdish fighters into Syria reflected the ferocity of the fighting in the northern Kobani area, which borders Turkey. Militants of the extremist Islamic State group have been barreling through the area over the past three days, seizing villages and forcing tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds to flee.

Kobani is facing the fiercest and most barbaric attack in its history.

Mohammed Saleh Muslim, head of Syria’s powerful Kurdish Democratic Union

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Saturday that 49 hostages seized by IS militants in June have been brought safely back to Turkey by the country’s intelligence agency. The hostages were brought to the southern Turkish city of Sanliurfa in the early hours of the morning. Police formed a cordon outside the airport as they arrived in buses with curtains drawn. The hostages, including Turkish diplomats, soldiers and children, were seized from Turkey’s consulate-general in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in June. The United States is planning military action in Syria against IS, but Turkey did not want to take a frontline role, partly because of fears for the fate of the hostages.

World Kurds