Leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan’s two main political factions declared on Sunday that they have dispatched weapons, equipment and humanitarian aid to help Syrian Kurds fend off an assault by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) on a Kurdish enclave in neighbouring Syria.

Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of Iraq’s self-ruled Kurdistan Regional Government, told a news conference in the city of Sulaymaniyah that only geography prevented the deployment of ground forces to help defend the besieged Syrian-Turkish border city of Kobani.

“Kobani is very important to us and we will spare no effort to save it,” Mr Barzani said at a joint news conference with Molla Bakhtiar, a leader of the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Unbowed by US-led air strikes, Isis fighters continued efforts to take Kobani, which has become a focal point for international efforts to defeat the group.

The US and UN have been pressuring Turkey to help Kurdish forces defend the city. Ankara has resisted because Kobani’s primary defenders belong to an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party, which Turks have been at war with for 30 years. However, Turkey has agreed to train Syrian rebels associated with the Free Syrian Army.

Fierce battles continued on Sunday between Isis militants and forces from the People’s Protection Units, known as YPG, and allied units of the western-backed FSA defending Kobani.

By early afternoon, plumes of smoke could be seen rising from parts of the city and the sounds of heavy gunfire could be heard in western districts, a witness said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, described continuing clashes and a surge of reinforcements as Isis attempted to seize control of the border crossing point into Turkey.

“It is a decisive battle [for Isis],” Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the observatory, said. “Should they win it, they will be able to stay long in Syria, and if they don’t they will lose face before their supporters.”

Isis and its allies killed scores of Iraqis in Shia districts of the capital and in the religiously and ethnically mixed districts around and to the north of Baghdad on Saturday and Sunday. Targets included a government compound in a Kurdish-controlled district of Diyala province. One bomb struck a busy ice cream shop in Baghdad, killing eight people.

On Sunday a roadside bomb killed Major General Ahmed Saddaq al-Tammimi, commander of interior ministry forces in Iraq’s troubled western province of Anbar. Continued setbacks in Anbar prompted the province’s council this weekend to formally put a request to the government in Baghdad to seek the deployment of US ground troops.

Also on Sunday UK officials confirmed to local media that British soldiers attached to the 2nd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment have joined US and German counterparts working near the front line in the battles against Isis as non-combat advisers and trainers in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Additional reporting by Daniel Dombey in Istanbul and Lobna Monieb in Cairo.

By Borzou Daragahi in Cairo
FT