19 die in protests across Turkey

At least 19 people were killed on Wednesday as pro-Kurdish protests raged across Turkey over the government's failure to act against jihadists attacking the majority-Kurdish Syrian border city of Kobane.

The disturbances are the worst outbreak of such violence in years and risk derailing Turkey's peace process with the Kurds.

In a move unprecedented since the deadliest days of the Kurdish insurgency in the 1990s, the army was deployed to impose a curfew in several cities in the east.

The violence was concentrated in the mainly Kurdish southeast, but also flared in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities, with empty buses firebombed and protesters hurling stones at police.

In Istanbul, 98 demonstrators were arrested and dozens injured, Turkish television reported. Eight police officers were injured.

The ruling Justice and Development Party government has so far not intervened militarily against Islamic State jihadists trying to take Kobane.

Ten of the deaths came in Diyarbakir, where the most intense rioting took place in the early hours of Wednesday, a local security official said.

Five of these deaths were blamed on clashes between Kurdish activists and supporters of Islamist groups in the southeast who are sympathetic to IS.

The clashes caused extensive damage in the city, with shop fronts burned-out and buses set on fire.

"We will never tolerate vandalism and other acts of violence aimed at disturbing the peace," Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan said in comments broadcast on television.

"Attempts at violence and harm threatening the peace of our people will never be taken lightly."

Schools were closed in Diyarbakir and flights were canceled, reports said. The protests first broke out on Monday night, but Tuesday's clashes were more severe.

Airstrikes push back IS

US-led airstrikes on Wednesday pushed IS fighters back to the edges of Kobane, which they had appeared set to seize after a three-week assault, local officials said.

The city has become the focus of international attention since the Islamists' advance forced 180,000 of the area's mostly Kurdish inhabitants to flee into adjoining Turkey.

IS hoisted its black flag on the eastern edge of the city on Monday, but since then airstrikes have redoubled by a US-led coalition that includes Gulf states seeking to reverse the jihadists' dramatic advance across northern Syria and Iraq.

AFP - Reuters

(China Daily 10/09/2014 page12)