Region

MOSCOW — Representatives of Syrian President Bashar Assad and opposition figures agreed at talks on Thursday to hold another round in Moscow, moderator Vitaly Naumkin said on Thursday, but no date was set.

The talks, a Russian initiative to revive stalled peace efforts in Syria's four-year-old civil war, were shunned by the main Syrian political opposition, and participants came together to adopt a series of points that largely represent Russia's own position on the violence. Moscow is a key backer of Assad.

Naumkin, an academic, said the sides agreed to join forces over the threat of terrorism in Syria, where Islamic State insurgents have taken over wide swathes of territory, though Moscow has described numerous other anti-Assad groups fighting in the country as "terrorists".

"The issue of fighting terrorism was one of the key themes discussed. This is exactly what brings the sides together as a key challenge to Syria's territorial integrity and unity," said Naumkin.

He said the talks offered the best chance at reaching another round of peace negotiations between the government and opposition in Geneva. The latest round of Geneva talks, the Geneva II conference, was held early last year.

Russia, whose stance on Syria has protected Assad from Western sanctions in the UN Security Council, pushed through with the conference despite a lack of support from Europe or the United States, where Moscow's ties are in tatters over Ukraine.

Naumkin said the majority of participants agreed to a series of points known as the Moscow principles which largely adhere to the talking points Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other diplomats have tirelessly adhered to during the conflict.

They include maintaining the sovereignty and unity of Syria, the rejection of foreign interference, combating terrorism and settling the country's civil war through peaceful means.

The main Syrian political opposition, the Western-backed National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, shunned the meeting in Moscow, saying it would only take part in talks that lead to Assad leaving power.

A document approved by rival sides during the first round of Geneva talks in 2012 called for creating a transitional governing body formed by mutual consent.

But the sides and their foreign backers, including Russia and the United States, have differed on what that means for Assad. His fate remains a key sticking point in the conflict, which has killed more than 200,000 people in almost four years.

There had never been high hopes of a breakthrough at the Moscow talks, a Western diplomat who tracks Syria said. He said that a lack of a real opposition, a lack of enthusiasm on behalf of Assad's government and a decision by ex-national coalition chief Moaz Al Khatib to shun the conference had doomed it.

"I thought — this is not happening that well, and it went downhill from there," the diplomat said.

CAIRO — A crackdown on protests in Egypt is not expected to provoke widespread unrest that threatens President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi's rule, as most Egyptians crave an end to years of political turmoil that have hammered their hopes of prosperity.

More than 25 people were killed at the weekend when security forces quelled protesters angered by what many perceive as a police state and a disregard for free speech and human rights, as well as the government's crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

But the unrest is unlikely to escalate dramatically as most Egyptians back Sisi's efforts to stabilise a nation roiled by upheaval since the toppling of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, say diplomats and analysts.

Sisi's long-term political survival may hinge instead on his efforts to stimulate the economy and create jobs in the Arab world's most populous country, where the unemployment rate has climbed from 8.9 per cent to 13 per cent since Mubarak's rule.

But the tactics used to put down the protests on the anniversary of the 2011 uprising on Sunday — with witnesses saying police opened fire with birdshot and live rounds — reminded some Egyptians of the decades of Mubarak's iron-fisted rule.

The diplomats and analysts warned that Sisi could not be complacent about public anger over any authoritarianism.

They say the dynamics of the unrest could change if Sisi does not reform the police, accused of widespread human rights abuses in a clampdown launched after the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013.

"There are significant pockets of resistance and resentment and the alienation of those pockets is likely to increase as the regime consolidates," said Egypt expert Nathan Brown, a professor at George Washington University in the United States.

Brown said "out of control" security forces acting with impunity and apparent lack of oversight are a liability for Sisi: "If that is not corrected, [it] may lead to a return to the general resentment that moves outside of those pockets."

One of those pockets is Matariya, a rundown Cairo suburb where 18 people were killed on Sunday. Profanities condemning Sisi are scrawled on buildings in the Brotherhood stronghold. There is also graffiti in support of the outlawed Brotherhood.

In a neighbourhood of rough roads and unfinished buildings, women sat outside a mosque waiting for male neighbours to return from the burial of 20-year-old Sayeed Said Halim.

Residents said he was killed in crossfire during clashes between Islamist demonstrators and security forces. Authorities, blaming the Brotherhood for the violence, said protesters were armed. "The protests will continue until we get our rights," said Oum Ahmed, an honorific used in the Middle East.

'Egypt is exhausted'

Although Sunday's protests were the bloodiest since Sisi took office in June, key differences from the situation in 2011 allowed security forces to move decisively against activists in Cairo, Alexandria and smaller cities in the Nile Delta and the south.

During the 2011 revolt, soldiers stood by as Egyptians protested because Mubarak had alienated the military. There are no indications that Sisi is losing the support of the generals.

Also in favour of Sisi is support from Western powers who pump billions of dollars in aid into Egypt every year despite accusations of widespread abuse from human rights groups.

While they call for democratic reforms, Egypt's Western allies have taken no tough measures to promote change. Sisi says he is fighting a war against terrorism, an argument which has resonance among Western states alarmed by the rise of Islamic State militants.

"The protests are not a threat to Sisi's rule but they show there is still discontent in the country and that has to be addressed," a senior Western diplomat said.

Critics say Sisi has returned authoritarian rule to Egypt while those around him defend police tactics and say that the alternative could result in unrest and chaos.

The fatal shooting of activist Shaimaa Sabbagh at a protest in downtown Cairo on Saturday caused outcry amongst pro-democracy activists. Images of blood dripping from her face quickly spread on social media.

"They want the country like under Mubarak. Rotten and silent, without any talk," said her friend Yehia El Gaafry.

Authorities said her death was under investigation. But police show no signs of softening. Armed with automatic weapons, they have been standing guard all week near the spot where she was shot in the back.

"The security sector in Egypt, specifically the police in its current shape and form, is a huge burden on any attempt, democratic or not, to move this country forward," said Karim Ennarah, of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

But in downtown Cairo, where rare protests were held in the run-up to the anniversary, conversations with shopkeepers suggest Egyptians will continue to overlook reported human rights abuses, as long as Sisi delivers stability.

Other than their allies, few people expressed concern over the deaths of Islamists at the hands of security forces.

"The country is exhausted," said Hamdeya Hussein, 64, who works at a stationery shop. She said she hopes the thousands of Islamists in jail will die there. "The security forces need to be tougher so that they finish them."

Mega-projects

Sisi's initial reforms focused not on the security sector, but on rebuilding Egypt's economy. He cut politically-sensitive fuel subsidies, winning praise from foreign investors — many of who have shunned Egypt, along with tourists, due to the political and social unrest since Mubarak was ousted.

Even though the move was unpopular at home, particularly among the rural poor, there was no serious political backlash.

Sisi's long-term political survival may hinge on mega-projects designed to boost the economy and create jobs. They include a second Suez Canal in the spirit of the ambitious national programmes of late President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was regarded as a hero by many Egyptians.

Much will also depend on whether oil-rich Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who see the Brotherhood as an existential threat will remain staunch financial backers of Sisi despite dramatically lower oil prices.

"The most significant risk is a steep decline in [Gulf] assistance if low oil prices persist before Egypt enacts serious reform and attracts serious international foreign direct investment," said Florence Eid, of think-tank Arabia Monitor.

A source familiar with government thinking in the United Arab Emirates said support from Abu Dhabi for Sisi and his policies will be "unwavering".

Egypt's senior security officials do not seem too concerned by the recent protests, which were followed by a series of bombs targeting police.

Police Brigadier Gamal Mukhtar told a news conference the Brotherhood had failed to muster support for the demonstrations, and described the bombs as the "last kicks of a dying horse".

Egypt is far calmer than a year ago, when Brotherhood protests hammered tourism, a pillar of the economy.

But if resentment about heavy-handed police tactics spreads, police are likely to take even tougher measures that could undermine Sisi's efforts to rescue the economy, analysts say.

"Even if there are no attacks in tourist areas and they are safe, the political protests and violence make headlines," said Angus Blair, chairman of Signet Institute, a think tank.

"And there is then a perception created that might dissuade some tourists and investors from coming to, or investing in, Egypt."

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia's new King Salman ordered a lavish payout to all state employees on Thursday and reshuffled some top government jobs while keeping in place the oil, foreign, finance, defence and interior ministers.

The top oil exporter will pay two months of bonus salary to all state employees and pension to retired government workers, he said in a series of decrees read aloud on state television a week after Salman succeeded his brother King Abdullah as king.

He removed two of the late king's sons from big jobs, making Faisal Bin Bandar Riyadh governor instead of Turki Bin Abdullah and reinstating Khaled Al Faisal as Mecca governor less than two years after he was replaced by Mishaal Bin Abdullah.

The two jobs are usually held by senior princes and have sometimes been stepping stones to higher positions.

In a possible indication of King Salman's approach to social reform, he also replaced several top religious officials, removing two clerics known as comparative liberals who headed the justice ministry and religious police.

He also appointed Mohammed Jadaan, a lawyer, as the new head of the Capital Market Authority, the state regulator for the stock market which will open to direct foreign participation later this year.

He kept in place veteran Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi, Finance Minister Ibrahim Alassaf and Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal. The labour, commerce, transport and economy and planning ministers were also kept unchanged.

He appointed new ministers of agriculture, education and information and a new head of the intelligence services.

He also merged the education ministry and higher education ministry and abolished the supreme council for petroleum and minerals affairs, replacing it with a new body, according to the text of a royal decree read out on state television.

The king, who took power a week ago after King Abdullah's death early on Friday morning, also kept in place the late king's son Prince Miteb as minister of the national guard, an important strategic post.

GENEVA/TRIPOLI — Libya's warring factions who operate rival governments have agreed "in principle" to move future negotiations on ending the crisis from Geneva back to the war-ravaged country, the United Nations said on Thursday.

Some of the opposing factions met in Geneva earlier this week under UN auspices, but key representatives from the Tripoli-based government stayed away, demanding the dialogue be held within Libya.

"There was agreement on the principle of convening future dialogue sessions in Libya, provided that logistical and security conditions are available," the UN Mission for Libya (UNSMIL) said in a statement after another round of talks in Geneva. It gave no date or venue.

Libya, in turmoil since a NATO-backed revolt ousted Muammar Qadhafi nearly four years ago, has two rival governments and parliaments, each backed by armed factions which Western governments fear are dragging the oil-producing nation into full-blown civil war.

Underlining the precarious security situation, heavily armed gunmen on Wednesday stormed a luxury hotel in Tripoli, killing at least nine people, including foreigners, before blowing themselves up with a grenade.

Libya’s internationally-recognised government under Prime Minister Abdullah Al Thinni and its elected House of Representatives are now based in the east of the country after a group called Libya Dawn seized Tripoli last summer, set up its own administration and reinstated the old parliament.

The Tripoli-based parliament, the General National Congress (GNC), welcomed the Geneva statement and said it would end a boycott of the negotiations declared after Thinni’s forces seized a central bank branch in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Thinni’s government said it was only “securing” the bank, which controls vital oil revenues.

The GNC’s second deputy president, Saleh Mahzoum, said each side should now nominate four delegates for a resumption of the main political talks which began last September.

‘Good spirits’

Despite the formidable obstacles in the way of forming a national unity government in Libya, diplomats brought members of Libyan city and regional councils together in Geneva on Thursday to discuss ways to end violence on the ground.

UN Special Envoy Bernadino Leon said the participants were working together “in very good spirits”, even though many come from areas that are fighting each other. Despite their differences, they later posed for a group photograph and spontaneously sang the Libyan national anthem.

One delegate from Tripoli told Reuters the meeting had agreed to set up committees to build confidence by working together on abducted and displaced people, the media, airports and borders.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM/BEIRUT — Israel and Hizbollah signalled on Thursday their rare flare-up in fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border was over, after the Lebanese fighters killed two Israeli troops in retaliation for a deadly air strike in Syria last week.

Israel said it had received a message from UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, that Hizbollah was not interested in further escalation.

In Beirut, a Lebanese source briefed on the situation told Reuters that Israel informed Hizbollah via UNIFIL "that it will make do with what happened yesterday and it does not want the battle to expand".

Asked on Israel's Army Radio whether Hizbollah had sought to de-escalate, Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said: "There are lines of coordination between us and Lebanon via UNIFIL and such a message was indeed received from Lebanon."

A salvo of Hizbollah guided missiles killed an Israeli infantry major and a conscript soldier as they rode in unmarked civilian vehicles along the Lebanese border on Wednesday.

Israel then launched an artillery and air barrage, and a Spanish peacekeeper was killed. Spain's ambassador to the UN blamed the Israeli fire for his death. Israel said on Thursday that its deputy foreign minister met the ambassador to voice regret at the death and promise an inquiry.

Wednesday's clash was one of the most serious on that border since 2006, when Hizbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war. Quiet returned on Thursday, though Lebanese media reported overflights by Israeli air force drones.

Both sides appear to share an interest in avoiding further escalation.

Iranian-backed Hizbollah, which fought Israel to a standstill in 2006, is busy backing Damascus in Syria's civil war. It may also be mindful of the ruin Israel has threatened to wreak on Lebanon should they again enter a full-on conflict.

Israel is gearing up for a March 17 general election and gauging the costs of its offensive on the Gaza Strip last year against Palestinian guerrillas, whose arsenal is dwarfed by Hizbollah’s powerful long-range rockets.

The Lebanese government, of which Hizbollah is a part, said in a statement it was determined to keep stability in southern Lebanon and to deny the “Israeli enemy the chance to drag Lebanon to a wide confrontation”.

Revenge

In a separate interview, Yaalon described Israeli forces on the Lebanese border as being vigilant, but not on war footing.

“I can’t say whether the events are behind us,” he told Israel Radio. “Until the area completely calms down, the Israel Defence Forces will remain prepared and ready.”

Yaalon termed Wednesday’s Hizbollah attack “revenge” for the Israeli air strike on January 18 in southern Syria that killed several Hizbollah members, including a senior operative, along with an Iranian general.

Israel has not formally acknowledged carrying out the air strike, but Yaalon said it had set back Hizbollah and Iranian efforts to “open a new front” against Israel from the Syrian Golan Heights.

UNIFIL officials did not confirm or deny passing messages between Israel and Hizbollah.

UNIFIL says it has no contacts with Hizbollah but its head of mission was in close contact with Israel and the Lebanese government throughout the day. The channel of communication “is still open now and it is always open in order to ask the parties to exercise maximum restraint”, spokesman Andrea Tenenti said.

During Wednesday’s flare-up, Israeli troops launched a search for suspected tunnels that Hizbollah might use to send in guerrillas for a cross-border attack — a tactic employed by Palestinian Hamas fighters during the 2014 Gaza war.

“No tunnels have been found so far,” Yaalon told Army Radio.

CAIRO — Twenty-five people were killed in a bomb attack on military buildings in the capital of Egypt's restive North Sinai province on Thursday, while an army major was shot dead at a checkpoint in Rafah near the Gaza Strip, medical and security sources said.

The flagship government newspaper, Al Ahram, said its office in the town of Al Arish, which is situated opposite a military hotel and base that security sources said were the intended targets of the bombing, had been "completely destroyed".

Later, suspected militants killed an army major and wounded six others at an army checkpoint in Rafah, security sources said.

An Islamist insurgency based in Sinai has killed hundreds of security officers since president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from power following mass protests against his rule.

Tensions have also been raised across Egypt this week by protests, some of them violent, marking the anniversary of the 2011 uprising that ousted veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Earlier on Thursday, a group of women protested in Cairo against the death of activists Shaimaa Sabbagh and around 25 others allegedly killed by security forces at rallies commemorating the 2011 uprising.

Sabbagh, 32, died on Saturday as riot police were breaking up a small, peaceful demonstration. Friends said she had been shot, and images of her bleeding body rippled out across social media, sparking outrage and condemnation.

"The interior ministry are thugs!" chanted around 100 female protesters gathered at the site of Sabbagh's death. Some held up signs with the word "Murderer" scrawled over the face of Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim.

The protesters were defying a law that severely restricts protests. "People are here at incredible risk to themselves. But it's a way of standing against the fear they have instilled," said activist Yasmin El Rifae.

Ibrahim has said an investigation into Sabbagh's death will lead to prosecution if any member of the security forces is found responsible.

One of the organisers of Thursday's demonstration said they had asked only women to attend because they feared infiltration by plainclothes male agents.

Across the street from the protesters, beside police officers, men stood making lewd gestures and yelling profanities. Others chanted in favour of President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.

Criticism is growing of the security tactics Sisi has used since Morsi was ousted.

A crackdown that began with the deaths of hundreds of Brotherhood supporters and the imprisonment of thousands more has expanded to include liberals and other activists.

Some of those now on the wrong side of the government initially supported the protests that led to Morsi's removal and Sisi's rise to power, as people who knew Sabbagh said she had.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel's state-run electricity company is to reduce energy supplies to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank because of a debt of more than $450 million, an official said Thursday.

The move comes at a time of diplomatic tensions, weeks after Israel froze the Palestinian Authority's (PA) tax revenues in retaliation for joining the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"Due to a mounting debt worth nearly 1.8 billion shekels ($459 million, 404 million euros), we have decided that as of today, electrical supply [to the West Bank] will be cut" for an hour each morning and another hour at night, an Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) official said.

The measure, which would "not cause general power cuts, will remain in place until the Palestinian Authority begins to settle its debts”, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The Jerusalem District Electricity Company, a private Palestinian firm that distributes energy supplied by the IEC, acknowledged the PA had failed to make payments but condemned the Israeli move as collective punishment.

"We have repeatedly warned of the consequences of the PA not paying its dues," JDECO director Hisham Omari said.

"But it is an unfair decision and a form of collective punishment," he said. "The IEC is the sole provider of electricity and we depend on it. We're still under occupation."

Neither official would comment on whether the move was a political decision.

But local media reported that enforcing it would require the approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and also have to go through Israeli security officials.

Israeli news website Ynet said the IEC had tried to carry out the move "several times in the past" but was prevented from doing so by the premier's office.

Israel froze tax monies it transfers to the PA early January, after the Palestinians applied to join the ICC, through which they threaten to sue Israel over alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories.

Ministers have threatened additional punitive measures, but Israel has not explicitly carried any out.

JDECO is a private company which purchases electricity from Israel to supply to Israeli-annexed Arab East Jerusalem and Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

As well as supplying electricity via JDECO, the Israeli firm provides power to the PA, which caters to the rest of the West Bank and also supplies power to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Both the PA and JDECO have run up debts after failing to collect the full amount they are owed by their own customers. The IEC is also suing JDECO for $150 million in
unpaid bills.

THE HAGUE — Lawyers representing the Comoros on Thursday asked International Criminal Court (ICC) judges to order its chief prosecutor to reconsider her decision not to probe Israel's deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla.

The Comoros, which has referred the case to the ICC, "asks the chamber to request the prosecutor to reconsider her decision not to open an investigation", its lawyers said in papers filed before the Hague-based court.

Ten Turkish activists died after Israeli commandos staged a botched pre-dawn raid on the six-ship flotilla seeking to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip in May 2010.

The ship on which the activists sailed, the MV Mavi Marmara is registered in the tiny Indian Ocean island country, which has been a state party to the ICC since 2006.

ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, however, in November said there would be no investigation leading to a prosecution, despite a "reasonable basis" to believe that war crimes were committed.

Bensouda said any potential cases arising from an investigation into the incident would not be of "sufficient gravity" to justify further ICC action.

But the Comoros' lawyers said: "Those on the flotilla are all entitled to the ICC's condemnation of impunity and to its sanctioning of individuals who might have hoped to enjoy impunity."

Bensouda failed to "take relevant matters" into consideration, including the broader context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the lawyers said.

"She should thus reconsider her decision."

Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza in 2006 and strengthened it a year later when the Islamist Hamas movement took control of Gaza, then eased it somewhat following the international outcry over the killing of the Turkish activists.

The ICC, which was set up in 2002, tries persons accused of the world's worst crimes, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Bensouda earlier this month launched a preliminary probe into possible war crimes committed against Palestinians including during last year's Gaza offensive.

Her decision comes after the Palestinians formally joined the ICC in early January, allowing it to lodge war crimes and crimes against humanity complaints against Israel as of April.

Israel and the United States have condemned Bensouda's decision with US officials calling it a "tragic irony" and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted it as "scandalous”.

Nearly 2,200 Palestinians and 73 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed during last summer's war in Gaza.

DOHA — Syria's opposition "embassy" in Qatar began Thursday to renew expired passports for some of the estimated 60,000 Syrians living in the tiny Gulf country, its chief said.

Nizar Haraki, the opposition envoy, said this would help thousands of Syrians who fled the country to escape the conflict, which has killed at least 200,000 people since it erupted in 2011.

It was not immediately clear whether the service would extend to Syrians living elsewhere.

About half the country's people have fled their homes since the war broke out, with the United Nations saying 3.8 million of them are refugees, mostly in neighbouring countries.

Haraki told AFP the service "removes a huge burden from the shoulders of Syrian expatriate citizens who are deprived of having a passport or being able to renew or extend it”.

Haraki said 52 countries had been contacted to ask if the passports would be accepted and that all but one, Canada, had said yes.

Syrians in Qatar have two months from Thursday to apply for new paperwork to renew their passports.

Last year it was estimated that some 40,000 Syrians had Qatari residency, while another 20,000 were on temporary visitors' visas.

Haraki said he did not know how many people would apply, but dozens of Syrians went to the office Thursday.

"There is no specific number of beneficiaries of the extension of the passport service, as it is provided for the first time," he said.

"This project is to break the siege of injustice and loss imposed by the regime on the Syrian people, and allows every citizen to move freely and to provide a decent living for himself and his family," added Haraki.

Many Syrians have lived in Qatar for decades, but their numbers have increased because of the conflict. Qatar has relaxed its immigration rules to allow Syrians to stay in the country long term.

Qatar has been one of the main supporters of the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad and has allowed demonstrations against him to be held in its capital, Doha.

However, some have accused the country of backing jihadists, a charge denied on several occasions by officials in Qatar, which has joined a US-led coalition against extremists in Syria and Iraq.

In February 2013, the emirate handed the Syrian embassy building in Doha to the Syrian National Coalition, the main opposition group, which was formed in Qatar in 2012.

KOBANI, Syria —  Sheets meant to hide residents from snipers' sights still hang over streets in the Syrian border town of Kobani, and its shattered buildings and cratered roads suggest those who fled are unlikely to return soon.

Kurdish forces said this week they had taken full control of Kobani, a mainly Kurdish town near the Turkish border, after months of bombardment by Islamic State (IS), an Al Qaeda offshoot that has spread across Syria and Iraq.

Their victory, raising Kurdish flags where the black symbols of IS once flew, prompted celebration among the more than 200,000 refugees who have fled to Turkey since the assault on the town began in September.

Cold weather, poverty and hunger have left many eager to return home and try to rebuild their livelihoods.

But months of intense fighting have hollowed out their town. Wrecked vehicles lie besides buildings reduced to piles of rubble and the roads are scarred by craters metres deep.

Tired and tense Kurdish fighters patrol near-deserted streets, and the risk of unexploded ordnance leaves the few civilians who remain fearful of where to tread.

"Coming back to Kobani will be even more difficult than leaving it," said one fighter from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), clutching a machine gun and standing in front of the ruins of a building.

"This city needs to be rebuilt from scratch. Everything is destroyed," he said, pointing to a pile of debris as tall as the single-storey building next to it.

Kobani, nestled in hills and separated from Turkey by little more than a disused railway line, became a focal point for the international struggle against IS, partly because of the heavy weaponry and number of fighters that the ultra-hardline Islamist group poured into the battle.

With the help of daily air strikes by US-led forces, air drops of weapons and ammunition, and fighters from the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq, Kobani's defenders managed to push out the insurgents and declare a tentative victory on Monday.

YPG fighters raised two fingers in victory signs for a group of journalists being escorted around Kobani, but behind the shows of pride a tense mood still hung over the town.

"Mortar shells keep landing here. Don't wander around, it's dangerous," cautioned one of the fighters, guarding a central square, as a group of his fellow combatants patrolled surrounding streets on motorbikes.

Battles have continued in villages to the southeast and southwest of Kobani since the Kurds declared victory. The Pentagon said on Monday the fight for the town was not over and a senior US State Department official said it was too soon to declare "mission accomplished".

Turkey's Radikal newspaper said a mortar shell fired by IS militants landed near the Turkish border inside Kobani on Thursday, wounding four civilians.

IS supporters have denied the group has been pushed out.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been wary of supporting Syrian Kurds amid concern about a push for Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria, questioned this week how much there was to celebrate.

"When it is about Kobani, the whole world stands up and cooperates... Today they are dancing with happiness. What happened?" he told a meeting of local government officials in his palace in Ankara.

"[Islamic State] is out of there, fine. But who will repair all those places you bombed? Will those 200,000 who fled Kobani be able to go back? When they are back, where will they live?" he asked.