ISTANBUL — About 150 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters have crossed over from Turkey to reinforce Kurds defending the northern Syria city of Kobani in a weekslong siege by Islamic State militants — an operation an Iraqi Kurdish leader called a temporary measure in the effort to defeat the extremists.
The movement of the peshmerga — professional soldiers from northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region — across the Turkish border marks the first time that Ankara has allowed a military assault against the Islamic State from its territory.