BEIRUT (AP) — U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters captured large sections of a strategic town on the Syria-Turkish border on Monday, dealing the biggest setback yet to the Islamic State group, which lost a key supply line for their nearby self-proclaimed capital.
The seizure of Tal Abyad threatened to flare tensions between Kurds and ethnic Arabs, who accused the Kurdish militia of deliberately displacing thousands of people from the town, which has a mixed population.
Redur Khalil, a spokesman for the main Kurdish fighting force, known as the YPG, said Kurdish fighters entered from the east and were advancing west toward the town's center amid fierce clashes with pockets of IS resistance.