({{AFP}}) -{ Washington made a first weapons drop to Kurdish fighters battling jihadists in the Syrian town of Kobane Monday that they hailed as a major boost for their nearly five-week resistance campaign.}
The US-led coalition has carried out more than 135 air strikes against Islamic State group (IS) fighters attacking Kobane but Washington had previously held off arming the strategic border town’s Kurdish defenders.
The weapons were dropped by air as neighbouring Turkey has repeatedly refused to countenance delivering arms to the Kurdish fighters, who have links with Kurdish rebels who have fought a bloody three-decade insurgency in southeastern Turkey.
Washington has said repeatedly that the main priority in its campaign against the jihadists remains neighbouring Iraq, where IS seized much of the Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad in June.
But a senior administration official said the arms drop was a recognition of the “impressive” resistance put up by the Kurdish fighters and the losses they were inflicting on IS.
Three C-130 cargo aircraft carried out what US Central Command called “multiple” successful drops of supplies, including small arms, provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq.
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