DAMASCUS, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- As many as 1500 Kurdish fighters have joined their fellow Kurds in Syria's northern city of Kobani to fight against the Islamic State (IS) militants, who have been on a crushing offensive for control over that key Kurdish city, the oppositional Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday.
The 1,500 Kurdish fighters streamed from Turkey through the borders toward Kobani since last Wednesday, said the Observatory, adding that all of the new fighters have joined the Kurdish militia called the People's Protection Unites, or YPG.
The latest flow of fighters comes as the IS terror group has been fighting intense battles for control over Kobani, which is on the borders with Turkey.
The IS has captured around 60 villages in the surroundings of Kobani, said the Observatory, adding that more than 200,000 Kurdish people have fled the city toward the Turkish borders since the IS unleashed the attack on Sept. 16.
Kurdish activists accused Turkey of cooperating with the IS to empty the city of its residents so that it could impose a buffer zone on the Syrian side of the borders under the pretext of helping the refugees.
The U.S.-led anti-terror coalition struck the positions of the IS around Kobani a day earlier. However, the U.S. strikes did not stop the ferocious attacks by the IS.
Syrian Kurds, whose communities largely live in the northern parts of Syria, have reached a deadlock in their fight with the Islamic State militants, who have repeatedly tried to storm Kurdish-dominated Syrian areas.
Syria's Kurds account for some 15 percent of the country's 23 million inhabitants, most living in the northern part of the embattled country.