BEIRUT/ISTANBUL: Kurdish militiamen drove ISIS from the Syrian town of Ain al-Arab and raised their flags Monday, an activist group and Syrian state media said, although Washington said the four-month battle was not yet over.
Across the border in Iraq, meanwhile, a top army officer announced troops had “liberated” Diyala province from ISIS jihadis.
In Syria, Kurdish claims of an advance in Ain al-Arab, known in Kurdish as Kobani, on the frontier with Turkey, marked the culmination of a battle lasting more than four months in which nearly 1,800 people were killed.