Islamic State fighters backed by tanks and artillery pushed into an embattled Syrian town on the border with Turkey on Monday, touching off heavy street battles with the town’s Kurdish defenders. A foreign policy expert answered CCTV America’s questions on the future of the IS threat.

For more on the Islamic State crisis, Michael Shank of the Friends Committee on National Legislation joined CCTV America.
Follow Michael Shank on Twitter @Michael_Shank

MORE ISLAMIC STATE COVERAGE ON CCTV AMERICA.

Hours after the militants raised two of their Islamic State group’s black flags on the outskirts of Kobani, the militants punctured the Kurdish front lines and advanced into the town itself, the Local Coordination Committees activist collective and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“They’re fighting inside the city. Hundreds of civilians have left,” said Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman. “The Islamic State controls three neighborhoods on the eastern side of Kobani. They are trying to enter the town from the southwest as well.”

The center of the town was still in Kurdish hands, Abdurrahman said. Kurdish officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Since it began its offensive in mid-September, the Islamic State group has barrelled through one Kurdish village after another as it closed in on its main target — the town of Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab. The assault has forced some 160,000 Syrians to flee and put a strain on Kurdish forces, who have struggled to hold off the extremists even with the aid of limited U.S.-led airstrikes.

Capturing Kobani would give the Islamic State group, which already rules a huge stretch of territory spanning the Syria-Iraq border, a direct link between its positions in the Syrian province of Aleppo and its stronghold of Raqqa, to the east. It would also crush a lingering pocket of resistance and give the group full control of a large stretch of the Turkish-Syrian border.

Meanwhile, a teenager from the U.S has appeared in court accused of trying to join ISIL. Mohammed Hamzah Khan was arrested over the weekend at an airport in Chicago apparently on his way to support the terrorist group. CCTV America’s Roza Kazan has more details about this suspect.