Kurds expel militants from Syrian city of Ras al-Ain

Kurdish fighters have expelled jihadists from the Syrian flashpoint frontier town of Ras al-Ain and the nearby border crossing with Turkey, activists said Wednesday, in escalating fighting that could signal another front in Syria’s fractious civil war. Kurdish fighters took total control of Ras al-Ain after 24 hours of fighting, the local media report. The jihadist groups were expelled from the whole of Ras al-Ain, including the border post with Turkey, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel-Rahman said. Earlier, the British-based opposition group had reported clashes between Kurds, the Nusra Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and other groups. Ras al-Ain has a majority Kurdish population and is of strategic importance because of its location close to Turkey. Kurdish fighters are trying to ensure that neither the regime of President Bashar Assad nor the opposition takes control of the area. The clashes between Kurdish fighters and jihadists erupted after the Nusra Front attacked a convoy of Kurdish women fighters, Abdel-Rahman said.