ISIS Seize Kurdish HQ in Syria's Kobane, Massacre Feared

ISIS captured the headquarters of Kurdish fighters defending the Syrian border town of Kobane, with a UN envoy warning thousands would likely be massacred if it falls to them.
Outgunned Kurdish militia were struggling to prevent the terrorists closing off the last escape route for civilians still in the area, prompting an appeal for urgent military assistance.
US-led warplanes have intensified air strikes against IS, which has been attacking Kobane for three weeks, but the Pentagon has warned that, without a ground force to work with, there are limits to what can be done.
Neighbouring Turkey has so far refrained from any action against the ISIS on its doorstep, despite four straight nights of protests among its own large Kurdish minority that have left 31 people dead.
The ISIS advance has brought the front line to just 1.3 kilometres from the border.IS now controls 40 percent of Kobane, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"The capture of the headquarters will allow the ISIS to advance on the border post with Turkey to the north of the town," its director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
"If they achieve that, they will have the Kurdish forces inside Kobane completely surrounded."
As fighting raged, an IS militant carried out a suicide car bomb attack to the west of the Kurdish headquarters that killed two defenders, and 10 Kurds were killed in an IS ambush on the south side of town, the Observatory said.
US planes conducted nine new airstrikes in Syria on Thursday and Friday, the US military said.And the Observatory said four strikes hit in the vicinity of the Kurdish headquarters on Friday afternoon.