BEIRUT: A US military airdrop of weapons meant for Kurdish fighters fell into the hands of their jihadist foes near the Syrian battleground town of Kobane, a monitor said on Tuesday.

The US Air Force parachuted crates of weapons, ammunition and medical supplies on Sunday night to resupply Kurds defending the Syrian town of Kobane from the Islamic State group (IS) jihadists.

“One load was taken by IS and there are contradictory reports about a second” which was also reported to have gone astray, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Some sources said two consignments had landed in the hands of IS, but others said that warplanes from a US-led coalition destroyed one of them once the error was detected.

But US Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said that only one of 27 bundles had gone astray and that American warplanes bombed it to prevent it being snatched by IS.

In a video posted on the Internet, titled “Arms and ammunition dropped by US planes in an IS-held area of Kobane”, a masked gunman shows off what appears to be one such bundle attached to a parachute.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2014