Islamic State militants killed dozens of people in and around the Syrian border town of Kobani on Thursday after launching a counter-offensive under the cover of darkness.

The militants - disguised as fighters from the Free Syrian Army - drove five vehicles into the town in the early hours of Thursday and used a suicide bomber to blow up a border crossing with Turkey. A civilian inside Kobani said: “No one can go out of their home, the streets are not safe … Isis fighters are getting inside houses and killing everyone [they find].”

At least 35 civilians and Kurdish fighters were killed along with eight IS militants, monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. A further 23 Syrian Kurds, among them women and children, were shot dead in the nearby village of Barkh Butan, the group said.

Isis withdrew from the village after US-led coalition strikes on its outskirts of the village and the arrival of Kurdish forces, but fighting continued in Kobani through Thursday.

Around the same time as the Kobani attack, the group launched an assault on the north-eastern city of Hasakah, aided by militias previously aligned with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Western districts were seized and the Syrian army pushed into the city centre.



The surprise, two-pronged offensive came as Isis reels from several high-profile defeats near Raqqa, the capital of its self-declared caliphate and its seat of power in Syria.

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The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia and an alliance of rebels known as the “Euphrates Volcano” – backed US-led coalition air strikes – have seized swaths of territory from Isis, including the strategic border town of Tal Abyad. In recent days they also wrested control of Brigade 93, a strategic base seized by Isis from the Syrian regime, and the town of Ain Issa, bringing them within 30 miles of Raqqa itself.

“Islamic State’s morale has collapsed after the advance in the Raqqa countryside,” said Redur Xelil, the YPG spokesman who provided the accounts of the latest Isis offensive. “They are trying to raise the morale of their fighters and supporters, and show that they still have strength and can strike out elsewhere.”

He also said that another goal of the Isis offensive may be to draw Kurdish troops away from the frontline to defend other territories.

Xelil said the militants who entered Kobani numbered between 30 and 40, and were holed up in buildings in the city after killing dozens of people. The YPG, backed by the Kurdish Asayish security forces, were combing the area and he was confident they would defeat the militants.



“We will destroy this group that entered the city,” he said.



Late last year, Isis was on the verge of conquering Kobani, an enclave on the Turkish border, but Kurdish fighters backed by the US-led coalition ultimately succeeded in reversing the militants’ advance and liberating the city, killing over a thousand Isis fighters in a months-long battle that emerged as a symbol of the Kurds’ defiance.

Many refugees who fled the city have since returned to their homes, many of which had been levelled during the fighting.



The joint Kurdish-rebel advance in recent weeks has provided a glimmer of hope in the fight against Isis. Last month, Isis seized the historic city of Palmyra in Homs province and Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar in Iraq, casting doubt on the entire strategy to contain the group.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest File image allegedly shows Islamic State militants on the road to Hasakah in June 2014. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The more serious threat is the Isis assault – its fourth – on Hasakah, a city divided between the Assad regime and the Kurds. Around midnight, Isis launched an offensive that has so far claimed the lives of 30 pro-regime troops and 20 militants, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group with a wide range of contacts inside Syria.

The attack triggered the flight of civilians from the area, and the regime has responded with a series of air strikes on militant positions south of the city. Isis used suicide bombers to soften up regime positions.

In a statement circulated on social media, Isis said it took control of western neighbourhoods and forced the regime’s troops to retreat to the city centre, seemingly in shock at what the militants described as a “daring operation”.

Xelil, who said the Kurds were not yet involved in the battle for Hasakah, said Isis had succeeded in winning the allegiance of members of the pro-Assad National Defence Forces – local militias that support the regime – allowing them to prepare the ground for the assault on the city.

The tactic is in keeping with the traditional Isis modus operandi of infiltrating areas prior to launching major assaults.

In a separate, major offensive in Syria’s south on Thursday, about 51 rebel groups joined together to attack regime-held areas of Deraa city, where insurgents have dealt Assad’s forces significant blows in recent months.

The southern rebels, including the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front and groups that do not share its jihadi ideology, have long said they aim to expel Syrian government forces from Deraa. Syrian state TV said the army had repelled attacks against a number of military positions in the south of the country.