The latest news from Kobane indicates that the YPG/YPJ have continued to slowly push ISIS out of the town and are now conducting regular ambushes in the surrounding towns including one 10 km south where the YPG reported that "Our forces ambushed &killed ISIS emir [leader] Abu Khansaa & bodyguards in Tel Ghazal south of Kobani."

We've not updated very frequently recently because the nature of the battle means there is little to report whose meaning can easily be understood to those unfamiliar with the town. The general situation is reported as ISIS having planted IEDs all over the areas of Kobane they captured which along with left behind suicide bombers mean the defenders have to recapture and clear the ISIS areas on a slow methodical building-by-building basis to avoid casualties.

We have been tweeting the YPG press reports each day, typically they report one or two streets being captured here or there in Kobane and one or two ambushes of ISIS forces near the town. Videos have been uploaded showing the substantial amounts of ISIS weaponry captured.

Meanwhile the PKK have been fighting with the Peshmerga in the region of Kirkuk, Iraq, with ISIS being reported to have had to retreat from several locations they had captured in the previous months.

The situation for the huge numbers of refugees created by the ISIS advance is increasingly difficult as winter has arrived and freezing rains are becoming common. It's harsh enough for those refugees who have tents but many do not.

Over the summer, hundreds of Syrians were killed by the Fortress Europe policies in the Mediterranean after the boats they were using to try and escape the conflict sunk. While NATO pretends to be intervening on humanitarian rather than geo-political grounds the refusal of most NATO members to accept refugees from the Syrian conflicts alongside the withdrawal of funding from Britain for Mediterranean rescue patrols tells a very different story.

For background information and earlier reports seehttps://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.974071899285290.1073741894.132000150159140&type=1

Words: Andrew Flood (Folow Andrew on Twitter)