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| Syria crisis: IS re-enters Kurdish held town of Kobane | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Islamic State fighters have entered the northern Syrian city of Kobane, battling Kurdish forces, activists say. | |
| The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says a number of people were killed in fierce clashes in the centre of the town on the Syrian-Turkish border. | |
| Kurdish forces drove IS forces from Kobane early this year after a long campaign backed by US-led air strikes. | |
| The battle made international headlines - heralding what some saw as a symbolic defeat for the IS. | |
| The jihadist group has suffered a string of defeats to Kurdish forces since it was forced to withdraw from Kobane in January after a four-month battle. | |
| Early this week, Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) forces said they had captured a key town, Ain Issa, just 50km (30 miles) from the IS headquarters at Raqqa, days after seizing Tal Abyad and cutting a major supply line for IS. | |
| As well as cutting an IS supply line, the YPG's capture of Tal Abyad allowed the Kurds to link up other pockets they control along the Turkish border, from Iraq in the east to Kobane in the west. | |
| Raqqa is the de facto capital of the caliphate whose creation IS announced a year ago after it captured large swathes of northern and western Iraq. | |
| "IS detonated a suicide bomb in the area near the border crossing with Turkey, killing at least five people," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman said. | |
| "Fierce clashes erupted afterwards in the centre of the town and there are bodies lying in the streets," he added. | |
| He said fighting was still raging on Thursday morning. | |
| The Observatory also reported heavy casualties as IS forces were involved in heavy clashes in two neighbourhoods of Hassakeh in north-eastern Syria, about 270km (180 miles) east of Kobane. | |
| The militants have tried to capture Hassakeh for months. | |
| Elsewhere, Syrian rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad attacked government-held areas of the southern city of Deraa. | |
| State TV says government forces, backed by air strikes, managed to repel the attack. |