Kurdish fighters helping ISIS in battle for Kobani

Ethnic Kurds are helping members of ISIS in the battle for the key Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, sharing their knowledge of the local terrain and language with the extremists, The Associated Press reported, citing Iraqi and Kurdish officials.

It is not clear how many Kurds are aiding the estimated 3,000 ISIS militants in the Kobani area - and fighting against their own Kurdish brethren - but activists say they are playing a major role in the 7-week-old conflict near the Turkish border.

A top military commander for the extremists in the town is an Iraqi Kurd, known by the nom de guerre of Abu Khattab al-Kurdi, helping them in the battle against fellow Kurds.

Officials with the main Syrian Kurdish force known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG, say they became aware of the Kurds among the mostly Sunni Muslim extremists early in the fighting.

As Kurdish fighters were defending the nearby Syrian village of Shiran in September, two Kurdish men with different accents and wearing YPG uniforms infiltrated their ranks, Kurdish officials said. Upon questioning, however, they were captured and admitted to fighting for ISIS, the officials added.

Iraqi and Kurdish officials say many of the Kurdish fighters with ISIS are from the northeastern Iraqi town of Halabja, which was bombed with chemical weapons by Saddam Hussein's forces in 1988, killing some 5,000 people.

Shorsh Hassan, a YPG spokesman in Kobani, said although most of the Kurdish jihadi fighters came from Iraq, some were from Syrian regions such as Kobani, Afrin and Jazeera. He added that the number of Syrian Kurds was small compared with the dozens of Iraqis fighting with the IS group.