KOBANI, SYRIA // Pulverised buildings, heavily armed fighters roaming otherwise deserted rubble-strewn streets: the ferocious battle for Kobane has left the Syrian border town in ruins.
Journalists who arrived in Kobani on Wednesday saw Kurdish fighters armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles firing celebratory gunshots into the air and flashing the “V” for victory sign.
Kurdish forces recaptured the town on the Turkish frontier from the ISIL group on Monday in a symbolic blow to the militants who have seized swathes of territory in their brutal onslaught across Syria and Iraq.
After more than four months of fighting, the streets of Kobani – now patrolled by Kurdish militiamen with barely a civilian in sight – were a mass of debris and buildings that had in some case been turned to dust.
On Tuesday, Kurdish forces battled ISIL militants in villages around Kobani, with warnings that the fight was far from over.
Still, the recapture of Kobani appeared to be a major step in the campaign against the ISIL militants who had seemed poised in September to seize the town, whose symbolic importance had far outgrown its military value.
The victory in Kobani comes as Syrian opposition figures and representatives of the regime of President Bashar Al Assad began talks in Moscow on Wednesday.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov urged the rival sides to join forces in combat against the threat of terrorism.
The main Syrian political opposition, the Western-backed National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, has shunned the meeting in Moscow, saying it would only take part in talks that lead to Mr Assad leaving power.
Mr Assad’s fate remains a key sticking point in the conflict, which has killed more than 200,000 people. Qadri Jamil, a former official in the Assad government who joined the opposition, said the Syrian leader’s future was not discussed in Moscow.
“Before Assad’s fate comes the fate of the Syrian nation. This is the priority now, we will discuss other issues later on,” Mr Jamil said.
However, expectations of a breakthrough in the Moscow talks remain low.
* Agence France-Presse and Reuters