This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A small group of Syrian rebels entered the embattled border town of Kobani from Turkey on Wednesday on a mission to help Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State (Isis) in Syria, activists and Kurdish officials have said.

The group of about 50 armed men is from the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and is separate from Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters, who are also en route to Kobani along the Syrian-Turkish border.

Idriss Nassan, a Kurdish official from Kobani, said the FSA group had come through the Mursitpinar border crossing in Turkey. Nassan, who spoke in Mursitpinar, said they had travelled in cars, but did not have more details.

Meanwhile, about 150 peshmerga troops arrived in Turkey from Iraq early on Wednesday, where they were met by enthusiastic crowds and Turkish security forces.

A Turkish Airlines plane touched down in the south-eastern city of Sanliurfa at about 1.15am (11.15pm GMT) amid tight security, a Reuters correspondent said. A convoy of white buses escorted by armoured jeeps and police cars left the airport shortly afterwards.

“They will be in our town today,” Adham Basho, a member of the Syrian Kurdish national council from Kobani, said of the peshmerga, confirming that a group of between 90 and 100 fighters had arrived in Sanliurfa overnight.

A separate group of peshmerga is travelling to the Turkish border region by land with heavier weapons. A Kurdish television channel showed footage of what it said was a convoy of peshmerga vehicles loaded with weapons en route to the area.

Saleh Moslem, co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union party (PYD), told Reuters the peshmerga were expected to enter Kobani later on Wednesday and would bring heavy arms with them.

“It’s mainly artillery, or anti-armour, anti-tank weapons,” he said. The lightly armed Syrian Kurds have said such weaponry is crucial to driving back Isis insurgents, who have used armoured vehicles and tanks in their assault.

Reports on Wednesday morning in the Turkish media that dozens of peshmerga fighters had already crossed the border were later retracted.

Last week, Turkey agreed to let the Iraqi-Kurdish fighters cross through its territory following international pressure to take greater action against Isis militants across its borders. The Turkish government said it would only allow peshmerga fighters to enter Kobani and not those affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which is outlawed in Turkey and listed as a terrorist group by the US and the EU. Turkey views fighters from the YPG (Syrian People’s Defence Corps), who are fending off Isis militants, as being loyal to the PKK.

Kobani officials have said that local YPG commanders were in contact with the peshmerga fighters to coordinate their strategy.

According to Turkish media reports, the border crossing by peshmerga fighters is being overseen by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation instead of its military, which is in charge of border security. “The Turkish armed forces do not want to give the impression of being in charge of the peshmerga transit,” military sources told the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.

Last week the Iraqi Kurdish regional government approved deployment of peshmerga forces to the beleaguered Syrian Kurdish enclave of Kobani. A Kurdish government spokesman later said the fighters would provide artillery support rather than engage in combat with Isis militants.

Mustafa Sayid Qader, peshmerga affairs minister for the Iraqi Kurdish regional government, said the fighters sent to Kobani would fight under “the direct command of his ministry”, adding that they were well trained and armed with advanced weapons.

The US – which has repeatedly called on its Nato ally Turkey to provide more than humanitarian support to the Syrian Kurdish enclave – welcomed the peshmerga deployment, calling it a “step to degrade and ultimately defeat” Isis.

Damascus also welcomed the deployment. “The Islamic State is the enemy of humanity and everyone else and we see sending the peshmerga to Kobani as positive. The Kurds need to support their brethren,” Ali Haidar, the Syrian national reconciliation minister, told the Iraqi-Kurdish news site Rudaw.

Isis has been laying siege to Kobani since mid-September, forcing an estimated 200,000 people to flee into Turkey.

• This article was amended on 29 October 2014. Earlier reports that peshmerga fighters had crossed into Syria were retracted. This has been reflected in the copy and furniture