ISIS storms northeast Syrian city of Hassakeh, attacks Kobani

Militants from Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) stormed Syrian government-held neighbourhoods in the predominantly Kurdish northeastern city of Hassakeh on Thursday morning, capturing several areas of the city, officials and state media said.

The attack came after ISIS suffered several setbacks in northern Syria against Kurdish forces over the past weeks. The city of Hassakeh is divided between Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces and Kurdish fighters.

Also Thursday, ISIS staged a new attack on the Kurdish town of Kobani, which famously resisted a months-long assault by the Islamic militants before driving them out in January. An activist group said 10 people died in the fighting Thursday — the first time in six months the ISIS had managed to enter Kobani, which lies along the Syria-Turkey border.

In Hassakeh, Redur Khalil, a spokesman for the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, said ISIS militants attacked government-held neighbourhoods on the southern edge of the city, and captured some areas.

Syrian state TV reported intense clashes inside Hassakeh's southern neighbourhood of Nashawi. According to the report, ISIS fighters killed several people they captured in the city, including the head of a military housing institution. It said the militants sustained many casualties, including the commander of the group who is a foreign fighter.

ISIS tried to storm the city earlier this month and reached its southern outskirts before facing strong resistance from Syrian government troops who pushed them away.

The attacks on Hassakeh and Kobani came days after YPG fighters and their allies captured the ISIS stronghold of Tal Abyad on the border with Turkey and the town of Ein Issa to the south. Kurdish fighters have been advancing since January under the cover of airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition.

But in neighbouring Iraq, government forces and allied Shia militiamen have been slow in retaking ISIS-held territory. The Iraqis have also suffered occasional losses.

Iraqi troops drove ISIS militants from Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in April, but lost Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province west of Baghdad, last month.

In June last year, ISIS launched a blitz, capturing large parts of both Syria and Iraq and subsequently declared an Islamic caliphate on the territory it controls. A major ISIS attack was widely expected during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began last week.

In an audio message Tuesday, ISIS spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, urged Sunni Muslims to use the time of piety and dawn-to-dusk fasting during Ramadan to wage jihad and seek martyrdom.

"Attack them everywhere and shake the ground beneath them," he said. It was not possible to verify the recording, but it resembled previous audio statements from the group.

Al-Adnani referred to the recent battlefield setbacks for ISIS, saying the faithful "may lose a battle or battles and may lose towns and areas, but will never be defeated."

Thursday's attack in Kobani involved at least one suicide car bombing, according to Kurdish officials and activists.

Ghalia Nehme, a commander with the Kurdish Women's Protection Units, told The Associated Press by telephone from inside the border town that "a group of fighters deployed in some areas of Kobani."

"We are defending a position now," she added.

Another Kurdish official in Kobani, Idriss Naasan, said the fighting was intense in the morning but became more sporadic by midday. He said the extremists appear to have infiltrated from villages south of Kobani.

"We hear cracks of gunfire every now and then," Naasan said from inside Kobani around noon on Thursday. He added that some explosions could still be heard but that it was unclear what those were.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks Syria's civil war, said Thursday's fighting in Kobani had killed 10 civilians and Kurdish fighters, and also three ISIS extremists.

After months of bloody street fighting, the Kurdish forces in Kobani, which lies along the Syria-Turkey border, succeeded in pushing out ISIS militants earlier this year. That was a landmark victory against the IS, enabled in part by the U.S.-led coalition's airstrikes.

Two Turkish officials said Thursday's attack in Kobani involved a suicide bomber who detonated his car near the border gate that separates Kobani from the Turkish town of Mursitpinar.