Following the liberation of the villages of Kultep, Koran, Baxdik and İdaniyê to the east of Kobanê, clashes have intensified in the villages of Hurub and Akbaş of Girê Spî (Tel Abyad).

Being stranded in the face of the operations of the YPG/YPJ forces, the ISIS gangs and their supporters around Girê Spî and its villages have started to flee across the Turkish border.

While the operations to liberate the villages around Kobanê after the liberation of the town continue in the rural areas, the resistance forces are now advancing towards Tel Abyad (Gire Spi), where the Baathist regime brought in Arabs in the framework of the “Arabisation” project in the Kurdish lands. The advance of the YPG/YPJ forces towards Tel Abyad has created panic among the gangs. In the meantime it has been reported that the Turkish state has moved its personnel and a radar system at the Ceylanpınar (Serakaniye) border to the border opposite Gire Spi, where clashes have intensified.

As the YPG/YPJ forces advance towards Gire Spi and launch attacks on the villages of Hurub and Axbaş to cleanse them of the gangs, the villagers from these two villages are waiting to return to their houses.

While people have started to return to other villages that have already been liberated, it has been reported that the needs of the people are being met by the YPG/YPJ fighters. A man from the village of Koran, Xelilê Herro, who had to flee his village and move to Kelok village in Akçakale, returned to his village after it was liberated 10 day ago. Xelil says two other villages; Bexdik and Kultep, were also liberated, adding that many people wanted to return to their village and are not bothered by the devastation of the villages as they are willing to rebuild. He says that the YPG/YPJ fighters deliver food and other aid materials to the liberated villages, adding that they will not leave their villages again.

Feridun Timurtokat, another villager from Koran, says that he returned 10 days ago after the liberation of the village and says that the ISIS members had sold the vehicles, furniture, animals and other stuff they stole from the Kurdish villages to the people supporting them in other villages. He says that ISIS gangs set up local markets to sell the stolen goods, and adds that the Turkish soldiers completely abandoned the border to the gangs when ISIS kept the border villages under its control.

Ahmet Söylemez from the village of Xirbê Berana says many members of the ISIS gangs were fleeing across the border as the YPG/YPJ forces advance towards Gire Spi and adds that ISIS uses the village of Gemreddin opposite the village of Sibqiran in Kobanê as a market place, adding that the village is completely Arab populated so that ISIS uses it as its base as it has support from the villagers.

Söylemez says the advance of the YPG/YPJ forces towards Gire Spi on the eastern front and the cleansing of the villages around Gire Spi has created panic among the ISIS members and their supporters, adding that minibuses used for transportation during the daylight hours in Akçakale town on the Turkish side are used to carry the ISIS members who flee away from the front during the night.  Söylemez says he has witnessed ISIS members cutting their long hair and beards in the minibuses so as not to be recognised on the other side of the border and adds that aid packets of İHH and the Humanitarian Assistance Foundation found in houses in the base village of ISIS, Beğdik, are alone proof of Turkish support for the gangs.