The U.S. military said Sunday night that it had dropped weapons, ammunition and medical supplies for the first time to Kurdish fighters defending the Syrian town of Kobani in a weeks-long battle against the militants of ISIS.
The drops came after at least 135 American airstrikes against ISIS in Kobani, which the military said had slowed the advance of ISIS. The militants are trying to take the city and control an important stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.
Turkey has said that it opposes any American transfer of weapons to the Kurds. Turkey views the Syrian Kurds as an extension of a Kurdish group in its own country that is waging an insurgency against the Turkish government.
The supplies were provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq, a senior administration official told reporters. They were dropped by three American C-130 aircraft, which met no resistance from the air or ground, a second administration official said.
The White House did not rule out similar drops in coming days. They said it was still possible that Kobani could fall to ISIS.
