ISIS- SYRIA-THREAD

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Unconfirmed reports of a large suicide bomb in Kobani by Abu Talha al-Ansarin



YPG say ISIS tanker on a suicide mission was taken out before it reached its target - wonder if this is the same explosion - worrying if ISIS have changed their tactics from firing missiles and shooting at Kurds to suicide bombing

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Reuters

Renewed assault on Kobani; 21 dead in Turkey as Kurds rise

Islamic State fighters launched a renewed assault on the Syrian city of Kobani on Wednesday night, and at least 21 people were killed in riots in neighboring Turkey where Kurds rose up against the government for doing nothing to protect their kin.

Heavily outgunned defenders said Islamic State militants had pushed into two districts of the mainly Kurdish border city late on Wednesday, despite U.S.-led air strikes that the Pentagon acknowledged would probably not be enough to safeguard the town.

In Turkey, street battles raged between Kurdish protesters and police across the mainly Kurdish southeast, in Istanbul and in Ankara, as fallout from war in Syria and Iraq threatened to unravel the NATO member's own delicate Kurdish peace process. The street violence was the worst Turkey has seen in years.

Washington said its war planes, along with those of coalition ally the United Arab Emirates, had struck nine targets in Syria, including six near Kobani that hit Islamic State artillery and armoured vehicles. It also struck Islamic State positions in Iraq five times.

Nevertheless, Kobani remained under intense bombardment from Islamic State emplacements, within sight of Turkish tanks at the nearby frontier that have so far done nothing to help.

"Tonight, (Islamic State) has entered two districts with heavy weapons including tanks. Civilians may have died because there are very intense clashes," Asya Abdullah, co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the main Kurdish group defending the area, told Reuters from inside the town.

U.S. officials were quoted voicing impatience with the Turks for refusing to join the coalition against Islamic State fighters who have seized wide areas of Syria and Iraq.

Turkey says it could join only if Washington agrees to use force against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Sunni Muslim jihadists fighting him in a three-year-old civil war.

Turkey's own Kurds, who make up the majority in the southeast of the country, say President Tayyip Erdogan is stalling while their brethren are killed in Kobani.

Police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse demonstrators who burned cars and tires. Authorities imposed curfews in at least five provinces, the first time such measures have been used widely since the early 1990s.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara that 19 people were killed and 145 wounded in riots across Turkey, vowing that Turkey's own peace process with Kurdish separatists would not be wrecked by "vandalism". Dogan news agency later said the death toll had climbed to 21. At least 10 people died in clashes in Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish city in Turkey's southeast. An all-day curfew there from Tuesday night was extended for another day on Wednesday. Pockets of protesters defying the curfew clashed with security forces there on Wednesday.

Others died in clashes between protesters and police in the eastern provinces of Mus, Siirt and Batman. Thirty people were wounded in Istanbul, including eight police officers.

Disturbances spread to other countries with Kurdish and Turkish populations. Police in Germany said 14 people were hurt in clashes there between Kurds and radical Islamists.

The unrest in Turkey, which has NATO's second largest armed forces, exposes the difficulty Washington has faced in building a coalition to fight Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, two countries with complex, multi-sided civil wars in which every country in the region has a stake.

BLACK FLAG

Islamic State fighters besieging Kobani hoisted their black flag on the eastern edge of the town on Monday. Since then, U.S.-led air strikes have been redoubled. The town's defenders said earlier on Wednesday the insurgents had been pushed back, but the fighters appeared to be advancing later in the day.

Intense gunfire and loud explosions could be heard on Wednesday morning from across the Turkish frontier. Huge plumes of gray smoke and dust rose above the town, where the United Nations says only a few hundred inhabitants remain.

U.S. officials, acknowledging it will be hard to shield Kobani from the air, have played down its strategic importance.

"Air strikes alone are not going to do this. They're not going to fix this. They're not going to save the town of Kobani. We know that," Rear Admiral John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, told a news briefing.

Secretary of State John Kerry said: "As horrific as it is to watch in real time what is happening in Kobani ..., you have to step back and understand the strategic objective."

Islamic State has been advancing on the town from three sides and pounding it with artillery despite dogged resistance from heavily outgunned Kurdish forces.

Kurdish media said Kurdish fighters thwarted a car bomb on positions in Kobani, saying the vehicle blew up before reaching its target. An Islamic State source on Twitter said the attack destroyed a police station. Neither account could be verified but a huge explosion could be seen from across the border.

In Turkey, parliament voted last week to authorize cross-border intervention, but Erdogan and his government have so far held back, saying they will join military action only as part of an alliance that also confronts Assad.

Erdogan wants the alliance to enforce a "no-fly zone" to prevent Assad's air force flying over Syrian territory near the Turkish border and create a safe area for an estimated 1.2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey to return.

France said it supported the idea of a safe area, and Britain said it was studying it. But it is clear the proposal has not taken hold in Washington, which has been bombing Islamic State targets in Syria without Assad raising objections, and does not want to be dragged into a conflict against Damascus.

"At the moment, the American air force is flying all over Syria with the permission of the Assad government," said Tim Ripley, a defense expert for Jane's Defence Weekly.

"To try and impose a no-fly zone would potentially involve a major air war against one of the biggest air forces in the Middle East ... which would only be a distraction from the fight against (Islamic State)," he said.

Kerry, repeating lukewarm views of other U.S. officials, said: "The buffer zone is an idea that has been out there. It is worth examining, it's worth looking at very, very closely." Pentagon spokesman Kirby said: "It is now not on the table as a military option that we are considering."

U.S. IMPATIENCE

The conflict has already opened up a fissure in relations between the United States and Turkey, its most powerful ally in the area. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was forced to apologize last week after Erdogan took umbrage at comments Biden made at Harvard University, in which he blamed Turkey's open borders for allowing Islamic State to bring in recruits.

An unnamed senior U.S. official told the New York Times on Tuesday there was "growing angst about Turkey dragging its feet to act to prevent a massacre less than a mile from its border".

"This isn’t how a NATO ally acts while hell is unfolding a stone's throw from their border," the official said.

Kerry said Turkey was still deciding what role it would play. Retired U.S. General John Allen, charged with building a coalition against Islamic State after it seized about a third of neighboring Iraq, is due in Turkey this week.

But, while taking in Kobani's refugees and treating its wounded, Turkey has deep reservations about deploying its own army in Syria. Beyond becoming a target for Islamic State, it fears being sucked into Syria's three-year-old civil war.

It also distrusts Syria's Kurds, allies of Turkey's own Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which waged a decades-long insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in which around 40,000 people were killed.

The PKK's jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, has said any massacre of Kurds in Kobani would doom a fragile peace process with the Turkish authorities, one of the most important initiatives of Erdogan's decade in power.

The street protests across Turkey were already making the prospect of reconciliation with nationalists seem more remote, as protesters set fire to Turkish flags and attacked statues of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Selahattin Demirtas, co-chair of the HDP, Turkey's leading Kurdish party, condemned such acts as "provocations carried out to prevent help coming to the east (Kobani) from the west".

(Reporting by Daren Butler, Humeyra Pamuk, Gulsen Solaker and Jonny Hogg in Turkey, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Susan Heavey, Mohammad Zargham, Arshad Mohammed, Lesley Wroughton, David Alexander and Phil Stewart in Washington and John Irish in Paris; Writing by Peter Graff and Kevin Liffey; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/ ... XF20141008

[Anthea]

Huffington Post

This Is How Close The Fight Against ISIS Is To Turkey's Border

The battle for the Syrian border town of Kobani continued on Wednesday, with Kurdish forces, aided by coalition airstrikes, making a desperate stand to prevent an aggressive advance by Islamic State militants.

Kobani, a tiny enclave of Kurdish-controlled territory between the Turkish border and a wide swath of Syria held by the Islamic State, has captured the world's attention in recent days. The battle for the town is especially poignant because it quite literally brings the war against the Islamic State to Turkey's backyard.

Media outlets often refer to Kobani as a "short distance" away from Turkey. In fact, though, it really couldn't be any closer.

As Google Maps show, the center of Kobani is a little over 1.8 miles away from the nearest Turkish town, or about a 10 minute drive -- though the route would be flanked by minefields and heavily fortified by the Turkish military.

The Islamic State's advance toward Kobani has raised concerns about a potential massacre, prompted questions about the efficacy of U.S.-led airstrikes and, importantly, put a spotlight on the Turkey's reluctance to take action against the militants. Turkey, which has NATO's second-biggest army, has tanks lining the borderland near Kobani. But those tanks have remained idle, even as clashes between Kurdish and Islamic State fighters have claimed hundreds of lives and forced thousands of refugees into Turkey.

For Turkey, the fall of Kobani would be disastrous, as it would likely lead to both a humanitarian and political crisis inside Turkey's borders. The loss of the town would give the Islamic State another stronghold on a Turkish border crossing, raising serious security concerns and opening up potential smuggling lanes for the arms and oil that bolster the militants. It could also threaten to reignite a decades-long conflict between Turkey and the PKK, the Kurdish militia group that both Turkey and the U.S. consider a terrorist organization.

So why isn't Turkey intervening to stop the war from spilling over its border?

Turkish officials have made vows to protect Kobani, but the country has so far remained steadfast in its inaction. Steven A. Cook, a Turkey expert with the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that domestic political concerns may explain the government's intransigence. The country's proximity to the Islamic State, Cook argues, means that taking overt action against the militant group could provoke immediate backlash against Turkish citizens.

İlnur Çevik, a prominent columnist for the Turkish pro-government newspaper Daily Sabah, made a similar argument on Tuesday, writing that "the government knows it cannot explain body bags coming from Syria to its Turkish majority with parliamentary elections only eight months away."

But there's one problem with this assessment, Cook notes. Turkey's inaction will outrage its Kurdish minority, as the deadly protests have illustrated in recent days.

Turkey seems content, at least for the moment, to let Kobani remain a fight Kurdish forces and U.S. airstrikes. The result is surreal photos like the ones below, where Turks stand and watch as a humanitarian disaster unfolds on their doorstep.


Turkish tanks looking at Kobani

Link to Article and Photos:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/0 ... mg00000017

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phpBB [video]

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Bloomberg

Kurdish Protests Roil Turkey as Jihadists Fight in Kobani
By Selcan Hacaoglu and Benjamin Harvey

A curfew was in force for a second night across much of southeast Turkey, after deadly clashes sparked by Kurdish protests against the advance of Islamic State militants in neighboring Syria.

The curfew in Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish city in Turkey, will be lifted during the daytime today and enter force again at 6 p.m., the city governor’s office said, according to the official Anadolu agency. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said at least 19 people were killed in the violence that spread across the region the previous night, and Hurriyet newspaper put the death toll at 22.

Turkey’s Kurds are protesting what they say is the government’s failure to stop the Islamic State attack on the mainly Kurdish town of Kobani just across the Syrian border. Fighting inside Kobani continued yesterday, as the jihadists battled with Syrian Kurds defending the city, while the U.S. stepped up air strikes against militants around the town.

Kurdish groups in Turkey have blamed the Turkish government for not doing enough to help Kobani’s defenders, and warned that its fall would lead to the collapse of a peace process in Turkey to end decades-long fighting by Kurdish rebels for autonomy.

The protests, which also spread to cities in western Turkey, are “the scream of Kobani for help,” Sadi Oktay, a Kurdish activist, said as he watched the fighting in the Syrian town from a field about a kilometer inside Turkey. Gunfire and occasional explosions could be heard across the border, and soldiers blocked people from getting nearer to it.

Expanding Caliphate

Kobani’s capture would extend Islamic State’s grip on territory along Syria’s border with NATO-member Turkey. The group’s self-declared caliphate extends from there into Iraq, where it has taken control of major towns in Anbar province to the west of Baghdad in recent days.

It would also deliver a blow to the autonomous administration that Syria’s Kurds have established as the government of President Bashar al-Assad lost control of large swaths of land to rebels during three years of civil war.

Turkey has pledged to join the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State, without specifying what it will do. Its main goal in Syria has been the removal of Assad’s regime, and the government has said it will only take part in operations in Syria if they’re part of a plan with that objective.

Supply Route

“While it is unlikely Turkey’s Syrian policy will shift significantly following the street violence, the government will want to demonstrate some support for Syria’s Kurds,” to avoid the perception it favors Islamic State, said Mehmet Muderrisoglu, an analyst at Eurasia Group in London, in an e-mailed report. That may take the form of “allowing supplies and Kurdish fighters into Kobani,” he said.

Turkey’s role in the fight against Islamic State will become clearer in the coming days, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said today. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg arrived in Turkey late yesterday and retired U.S. General John Allen, who’s coordinating the coalition against Islamic State, is also due there for talks today.

Turkey is “the only power that can protect the rule of law in Kobani,” Davutoglu told reporters late yesterday. He also said that Turkey’s willingness to help Syrian refugees and determination to pursue peace talks with the PKK won’t be affected by the “vandalism” of protesters in the southeast.

To contact the reporters on this story: Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at shacaoglu@bloomberg.net; Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul at bharvey11@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net Ben Holland, Andrea Snyder

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-0 ... obani.html

[Anthea]

Bloomberg

Kerry Says Turkey Near Decision on Islamic State Fight

Turkey’s role in the fight against Islamic State will be decided in the next few days, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said today.

Kerry, speaking in Washington, said retired Marine General John Allen, the U.S. envoy to other members of the anti-Islamic State coalition, will travel to Turkey for discussions tomorrow and the following day about its role. He said the U.S. and its allies are still figuring out the mission for each country in taking on the Sunni extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

“You will see over the next hours, days, the fullness of that strategy evolving and decisions being made about the Turks and others as to exactly what role they’re going to play,” Kerry said in remarks with visiting U.K. Foreign Minister Philip Hammond.

The immediate issue in U.S.-Turkey relations is how each country will respond to calls from human-rights organizations and Kurdish groups throughout Europe to save the besieged Kurdish town of Kobani, near Syria’s border with Turkey, from an Islamic State offensive.

The U.S. has rebuffed Turkey’s pleas to help create a buffer zone in Syria near the Turkish border, while Turkey’s prime minister has said it would take part in operations in Syria only if U.S. airstrikes are expanded beyond hitting Islamic State targets to a wider campaign to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

‘Difficult Period’

“The Turkey-U.S. relationship has entered a difficult period,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat now with Carnegie Europe, a Brussels-based policy group. The dispute over Kobani reflects tensions that have developed in Turkey’s relations with the U.S. in recent years, Ulgen said in a phone interview.

Turkey considers President Barack Obama’s administration “overly cautious in this region, possibly to overcompensate for the excesses of the era” of former President George W. Bush, who launched the invasion of Iraq, Ulgen said in an interview.

Turkey has clashed with Israel, a close U.S. ally, and chafed at Washington’s policies in the Middle East, including Obama’s decision not to take a more active role in Syria after the civil war broke out there in 2011.

No-Fly Zone

Now, Turkey wants the U.S. to commit to a no-fly zone in which Turkey would take the lead, Ulgen said, to accommodate future refugee flows and serve as an area for training moderate opposition forces. Air defenses would be necessary to protect the area from the Syrian air force, Ulgen said.

Asked about the call for a U.S.-backed buffer zone on the Turkish-Syrian border, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters in Washington today that “it’s not something that’s under consideration now.”

Despite talk of tensions between the U.S. and Turkey, Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon’s spokesman, told reporters today, “We’re not making demands on the Turks.”

“We want to see Turkey contribute,” he said. “We want to see Turkey be helpful. We know they have information and capabilities” that the U.S. lacks “because they’re there.”

Kirby said that airpower alone won’t be enough to save Kobani. “You do need competent ground forces to deny safe haven over the long haul” to the Islamic State extremists, he said. “In Syria right now we just don’t have a ground force we can work with.”

The U.S. has no plans for humanitarian relief to Kobani, partly because many of the town’s residents already have fled, according to Kirby.

In the end, Turkey’s “absolutely going to be part of the solution,” Assistant Secretary of Defense Derek Chollet said today at a conference in Washington. “It has to be -- it’s its border.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net Larry Liebert

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-0 ... fight.html

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Wall Street Journal

Turkey’s Kurdish Reckoning in Syria

At Kobani, Ankara must confront the fallout from its lax attitude toward jihadism.
By Ranj Alaaldin

Now that the Turkish parliament has approved military engagement against the Islamic State in Syria, the question is what Ankara will do next in this growing conflict on its doorstep. The worrying answer: probably not enough.

Turkey’s policy toward the three-year conflict in Syria has been both misguided and unfortunate. When the Syrian uprising broke out in 2011, Ankara, like much of the international community, believed the fall of Bashar Assad to be imminent and put its full weight behind opposition groups willing to fight his regime. So Turkey, along with others, ended up backing hard-line Islamist groups.

Ankara’s support for rebels in Syria was rooted in its broader strategic objective of combatting the influence of the Iranian axis that includes the Assad regime and the pro-Tehran government in Baghdad. But Turkey’s laissez-faire attitude toward jihadism in the neighborhood also reflected a desire to limit Kurdish political and national aspirations in Syria that have emboldened Turkey’s own agitated population of 20 million Kurds.

Then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan thus acquiesced to jihadist groups entering Syria via Turkey, as well as their use of Turkey as a transit point through which to smuggle arms and funds into Syria. Ankara’s indifference to the black market on its territory, moreover, has enabled ISIS’ lucrative oil industry, through which the group has amassed hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now, instead of the Assad regime, it is ISIS and its resource-rich “state” that represents a graver, more imminent threat in its neighborhood and beyond. And even today Ankara remains reluctant to engage ISIS militarily. Last week’s parliamentary authorization of military force so far hasn’t been followed by robust action, and ISIS is now set to take Kobani, a 400,000-strong Syrian Kurdish town on Turkey’s border.

There’s a reason Ankara hasn’t exactly rushed to the Syrian Kurds’ rescue. The Syrian civil war has led to the creation of an autonomous Syrian Kurdish region, where the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, is the most powerful party. Turkey fears the rise of the PYD because it is a sister organization of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, Turkey’s homegrown Kurdish movement.

To preserve limited resources for the fight against Sunni rebels and sundry jihadist groups, the Assad regime has withdrawn from several Kurdish towns and cities, allowing the YPG, or People’s Protection Commmittees, to fill the vacuum and effectively govern Syria’s Kurdish-dominated northeast.

This has sent Turkey into panic mode. Ankara refused to work with the PYD and mostly ignored ISIS brutality against Kurds in Syria. Even so, the PYD has emerged as a formidable and moderate force capable of fighting ISIS. It won international praise for giving the Yazidis, threatened with extermination by ISIS, safe passage out of Iraq and into Syrian Kurdish territory. The once-stagnant PKK has also become revitalized and is now a key regional player.

Ankara knows it can’t militarily engage the PYD or even defeat the PKK on its own territory, given its futile efforts to do so for more than three decades. Fighting the PYD directly in Syria might escalate Ankara’s confrontation with the Assad regime and patrons like Iran, which Turkey has so far fought via proxy. Ankara may therefore believe that by giving ISIS space to operate and allowing it to take Kobani, it could counter the PYD and prevent it from growing any stronger.

That would be short-sighted. A stronger PYD will certainly mean a stronger PKK; that could have consequences within Turkey and give impetus to Kurdish secession. But Turkey should know by now that it can’t stop Syria’s Kurds and, eventually, its own Kurds from achieving greater political and territorial rights.

Alongside Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government, the region’s other Kurds have achieved greater international legitimacy thanks to their organizational skills, diligent foreign relations and, most importantly, willingness to fight ISIS. The Kurds are now key players, with the U.S. and other Western states now adopting policies that recognize the Kurds as separate from the countries they reside in and as players in their own right.

Pushing the Kurds away will only push them into the arms of Turkey’s regional rivals, which will compound Turkey’s geostrategic problems. Turkey could continue with intransigence and go for broke by letting ISIS take Kobani and operate on its borders. That wouldn’t be sustainable, however, and might eventually lead to a homegrown jihadist movement in Turkey.

Turkey needs to pursue a sustainable policy that is based on a grand bargain with the PYD, the PKK and Turkey’s Kurdish population more generally. Ankara must work with them in the same way it has with Iraq’s Kurds. There is now widespread acceptance within Turkey that this means revisiting the peace process with the PKK and meeting the democratic demands of Turkey’s Kurds. It also means Turkey must leave short-sighted and futile policies in the past and truly join the international community in the battle against radical Islam.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/turkeys- ... 1412795822

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Mail Online

'Hell is unfolding': First chilling pictures INSIDE war-torn Syrian border town of Kobane show ISIS fighters prowling the deserted streets and their flag still flying - despite two days of airstrikes
By Larisa Brown

Islamic State militants pictured stalking the deserted streets of Kobane despite days of American and Arab airstrikes
Scores of Kurdish soldiers who have battled militants over the past three weeks have now been captured or killed
News comes as a senior UN official urges immediate military action to prevent Kobane falling into the militants' hands
Staffan de Mistura says world 'cannot sustain' ISIS taking more territory, adding they will 'rape and massacre' citizens
John Kerry 'extremely concerned' by the developing situation but cautions on establishment of 'buffer zone'
Airstrikes have killed at least 45 Islamic State militants since Monday, forcing group to withdraw from parts of town
But there are concerns that any retreat may be temporary and bombing raids alone are not enough to defeat terrorists

Chilling photographs of Islamic State militants prowling the streets of Kobani emerged yesterday after air strikes failed to stop their advance.

The jihadis, carrying guns and wearing casual clothing, were seen wandering through backstreets in the suburbs of the besieged Syrian town just 200 yards from the Turkish border.

Three days of US-led bombing raids had pushed the extremists back to the edges of the border town, which had been besieged for three weeks, and was about to fall.

But the photographs of IS militants in the suburbs of the town without coming under attack is likely to raise fears that the heavily outgunned Kurdish forces are becoming weaker, with one US official admitting that ‘hell is unfolding’.

Women and children armed with AK-47s had been forced to step in to protect Kobani after desperate calls for international help had either gone unanswered or the efforts were proving ineffective.

Kurdish forces said there had been successes but more air strikes were needed to save the town – where thousands of civilians are still living and where the Kurdish militia have pledged to fight to the death. US officials yesterday said they had conducted nine air strikes in Syria – including six around Kobani targeting armed vehicles and artillery. In Iraq, five air strikes destroyed IS targets, including buildings and armed vehicles.

The Pentagon said some IS militants had left the Kobani area as a result of the coalition air strikes, but the town could still fall. Rear Admiral John Kirby said the US was doing everything it could from the air to try to halt the IS momentum against the town, but added that air strikes alone would not save the city and there were no plans to send US ground forces in.

Kobani has become the focus of international attention since the Islamists’ advance drove 180,000 inhabitants to flee to Turkey – which has come under fierce criticism for failing to intervene.

Violent clashes erupted in the Nato member state as the country ignored desperate pleas to help Kurdish militia – who have struggled against the tanks and advanced weaponry being used by IS. Riots on Tuesday left 12 dead and scores injured as police threw tear gas and water cannons at angry protesters in towns across Turkey. Authorities imposed curfews in five southeastern provinces and sent troops and tanks on to the streets of Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish city in the region, to try to quell the unrest.

Turkey had pledged to prevent Kobani from falling but it appears to have taken little action.

Syrian Kurds have said that not only are the Turks not helping, they are actually hindering the defence of Kobani by preventing Kurdish militiamen in Turkey from crossing the border to help fight. The Turkish government is said to be reluctant to support the Kurdish forces because it fears encouraging the Kurdish separatist movement inside its own borders.

Full Article and Many Photos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -ISIS.html

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The Independent

Isis in Kobani: Still no sign of Turkey reacting to threat on its border as John Kerry says preventing the fall of the town is not a 'strategic objective'



As the fighting continues, the lack of assistance for those living in Kobani sparked more violent demonstrations across Turkey

The civil war in Syria rocked Turkey – a Nato member state – when riots broke out in a number of cities, opening age-old wounds between Turks and Kurds.

As officials in Ankara continued to debate whether to take an active role in the fight against Isis, rival factions stirred old enmities. The country was rocked by explosive clashes in more than 20 cities as Kurds protested against the government’s perceived inaction over the plight of those living in the Kurdish city of Kobani, just a few miles inside Syrian territory.

Turkish tanks have lined up opposite Kobani, to guard against any incursion across the border by Isis fighters, but there seems to be little appetite to enter the besieged city to help the Kurdish population inside.

Turkey has taken in more than 180,000 refugees who fled Kobani, but has stopped short of joining a US-led coalition against the Sunni militants. Instead, it has called for the creation of a buffer zone and a no-fly zone, which it hopes would secure its border and limit the flow of refugees. The proposal has been rebuffed by the Americans.

Speaking tonight, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, suggested that preventing the fall of Kobani was not a strategic US objective. “As horrific as it is to watch in real time what is happening in Kobani, you have to step back and understand the strategic objective,” he said.

“Notwithstanding the crisis in Kobani, the original targets of our efforts have been the command and control centres, the infrastructure.”

Mr Kerry said he expected Turkey to decide “over the next hours, days” what role it would play against Isis.

The lack of assistance for Kurds in Kobani sparked more violent demonstrations across Turkey. At least 19 people died as Kurdish protesters threw Molotov cocktails and rocks at police. They were met with tear gas, sticks and water cannons.

The south-eastern city of Diyarbakir, the de facto Kurdish capital in Turkey, suffered the worst violence and highest death toll.

A curfew was extended until Thursday after at least eight people died during the protests.

Diyarbakir is one of six cities that remained on lockdown. “The city is under curfew until 6am and nobody can come in or out. There were no police on our streets last night – just us and them,” said Bayram Baran, a 25-year-old lawyer from Diyarbakir.


Protestors clashing with riot police during a demonstration in Diyarbakir, Turkey

To further complicate Turkey’s political patchwork, much of the violence occurred between rival Kurdish factions, who attacked each other as well as local branches of several parties, including the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

While the political actors debated the future of the city, the battle for Kobani continued to rage as a flurry of US air strikes appeared to temporarily halt the advance of Isis.

Several thunderous booms were followed by mushroom clouds clearly visible from the Turkish side of the border.

Only a mile away, the Turkish town of Caykara rocked as explosion after explosion – each one louder than the last – hit Kobani.

Men watching the battle from the roof of the local mosque shouted: “Long live America. Long live America”, believing they were hearing US air strikes.

The low whirr of aircraft could be heard before the crashes. The strikes appeared to be helping Kurdish fighters, reportedly hitting a hospital used by Isis as a base in the east of the city, in which they already have a foothold. The People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian franchise of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), have been defending the city.


Smoke from air strikes against Isis in Kobani can be seen from across the border in Mursitpinar, Turkey

The battle concentrated on the eastern side as dusk fell, with YPG fighters and Isis militants clashing in street-by-street fighting.

“Isis tried to enter the city today with tanks, and a big truck full of weapons to bomb the YPG in the centre, but YPG were ready and they blew up the truck at about 4pm local time,” Zara Misto, editor of Welati.com, who has been reporting from inside Kobani since the beginning of the battle, told The Independent.

Kurds in the nearby town of Suruc took to the streets again, this time to support those living in Kobani.

Ekrem Ahmad, 40, a mechanic from Kobani said: “I’m happy to see Kurds as well as British, American, French and German people protesting in support of Kobani. It really raises our morale.

“The governments may not give us weapons, but their people give us hope.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 83372.html

[Anthea]

US-led warplanes pound jihadist sites as Kurds hold out in Kobane

US forces conduct airstrikes on Syria/Turkey to prevent key town falling to the Islamic State

US-led warplanes have intensified bombing raids against jihadists advancing on the strategic Syrian border town of Kobane, in a desperate bid to help Kurdish forces who are holding out despite the Islamic State group's three-week assault.

US and Jordanian aircraft pounded IS positions near Kobane, destroying barracks, armed vehicles and a logistic command, even though the Pentagon admitted that air strikes alone were not enough to prevent the strategic town from falling.

Across the border in Turkey, protests over Ankara's failure to come to the rescue of Kobane's predominantly Kurdish residents sparked clashes that claimed at least 21 lives and forced authorities to declare a curfew in six provinces.

US President Barack Obama said after meeting his defence chiefs that there would be no easy victory against the IS group, but that a growing coalition was resolved to confront the jihadists.

A Pentagon spokesman earlier said the air offensive needed to be coupled with troops on the ground to defeat the IS group. But such a "capable" force currently do not exist on Syrian soil, Rear Admiral John Kirby said.

With pressure growing for international action to halt the jihadists' advance, France threw its weight behind calls for a buffer zone on the Syrian-Turkish frontier.

The top US and British diplomats said they were willing to "examine" the idea of a safe haven, but the White House later denied it was considering such a move.

Kobane has become a symbol of resistance against the IS group, which proclaimed an Islamic "caliphate" across swathes of Iraq and Syria, carrying out beheadings and other atrocities.

Kurdish forces "continue to control most of the city and are holding out against the (IS jihadists)," the US military said.

The three-week IS group assault on Kobane has sent some 200,000 people flooding across the border into Turkey, and some residents said hundreds more remained two days after jihadists breached the town's defences.

"There are 1,000 civilians who refuse to leave," said activist Mustafa Ebdi.

"One of them, aged 65, said to me: "Where would we go? Dying here is better than dying on the road.'"

US and coalition aircraft targeted IS fighters near the town Wednesday, launching 14 attacks, the US military said.

The latest strikes near Kobane destroyed five armed vehicles, an IS supply depot, a command centre, a logistics compound, and eight occupied barracks, Central Command said.

The sounds of heavy gunfire and mortar shells were heard from the Turkish side of the border, an AFP reporter said, as fierce street battles raged.

"The raids helped prevent the fall of the town, but what is needed now is weapons," said Ebdi.

An IS fighter launched a suicide truck bombing in east Kobane, but there was no immediate news of casualties, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Observatory directory Rami Abdel Rahman said IS forces had advanced around 100 metres (yards) towards the town centre Wednesday evening, but that fighting had subsided slightly.

But he added that reinforcements for the jihadists were coming in from Syria's Raqa province.

The Observatory says about 400 people, more than half of them jihadists, have been killed in and around Kobane since the assault began in mid-September.

Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, would be a major prize for the jihadists, giving them unbroken control of a long stretch of Syria's border with Turkey.

France said it supported a proposal by Ankara to create a safe zone along its frontier with Syria to ensure security and to host fleeing refugees.

In a telephone conversation with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Francois Hollande "gave his support to the idea... of creating a buffer zone between Syria and Turkey to host and protect displaced people," the French presidency said.

In Washington, US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters: "The buffer zone is an idea that's out there. It's worth examining; it's worth looking at very, very closely."

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said after meeting Kerry: "We are at the stage of exploring this."

But White House spokesman Josh Earnest countered, saying "it's not something that is under consideration right now".

Ankara has come under increasing pressure to act in Kobane, but its response has been complicated by concerns over emboldening Kurdish separatists, who have waged a deadly insurgency in Turkey for the past three decades.

The United States is also pushing Ankara to join the fight, dispatching retired general John Allen, and the pointman on Iraq, Brett McGurk, to Ankara for two days of talks in which they will try to squeeze commitments from Turkey.

Turkey has detained dozens of Kurds who crossed the border from Kobane on suspicion of having links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), officials said Wednesday.

The United States, along with Arab, European and other allies have launched nearly 2,000 air raids against jihadists in Iraq and Syria.

Australia carried out its first bombing raid in Iraq, with a Super Hornet fighter jet dropping two bombs on an IS facility.

Alarm over the IS advance also boiled over elsewhere, with German police using batons, pepper spray and water cannons as Kurds and Yazidis clashed with radical Muslims in two northern cities in violence that injured at least 23 people.

More than 180,000 people have been killed in Syria since an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime began in 2011, morphing into a multi-front civil war that has drawn thousands of jihadists from overseas.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... obane.html

[Anthea]

Reuters

Islamic State seizes one third of Syrian town Kobani - monitor

Islamic State fighters have seized more than a third of the Syrian border town of Kobani despite U.S.-led air strikes targeting them in and around the town, a monitoring group said on Thursday.

They moved into two districts on Wednesday in a three-week battle that Kurdish defenders say will end in a massacre and give the militants a garrison on the Turkish border if they win.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the country's civil war, said clashes continued into Thursday morning as the forces of Islamic State - still widely known by its former acronym of ISIS - pushed forward.

"ISIS control more than a third of Kobani. All eastern areas, a small part of the northeast and an area in the southeast," the Observatory's head, Rami Abdulrahman, said by telephone.

An explosion was heard on Thursday on the western side of the mainly Kurdish town, with thick black smoke visible from the Turkish border a few kilometres (miles) away. The sound of a jet flying overhead and sporadic gunfire from the besieged town was audible. Several ambulances sped from the border to the town of Suruc in Turkey.

Islamic State hoisted its black flag on the eastern edge of Kobani on Monday. Since then, the air strikes have been redoubled but failed to halt the advance.

In Washington, the Pentagon cautioned that there are limits to what the air strikes can do in Syria before Western-backed, moderate Syrian opposition forces are strong enough to repel Islamic State. U.S. President Barack Obama has ruled out sending American ground forces on a combat mission there.

Kurds have complained that Washington is giving only token support through its air strikes, which are focused in Iraq where the United States works with the Iraqi Army.

Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday: "As horrific as it is to watch in real time what is happening in Kobani ... you have to step back and understand the strategic objective."

Anthea: F**K the strategic objective

SAVE THE PEOPLE - SAVE THEIR HOMES - SAVE KOBANI

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 83297.html

[Anthea]

CNN

Carter criticizes Obama on ISIS: 'We waited too long'

Former President Jimmy Carter said President Barack Obama "waited too long" to go after ISIS and criticized what he described as the president's changing foreign policy.

"First of all, we waited too long. We let the Islamic State build up its money, capability and strength and weapons while it was still in Syria," Carter told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in an interview published Tuesday. The 39th president was in Texas working on a Habitat for Humanity project.

"Then when [ISIS] moved into Iraq, the Sunni Muslims didn't object to their being there and about a third of the territory in Iraq was abandoned," he continued.

The United States has so far led a coalition of countries in airstrike campaigns against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. But the militant group has continued to operate, and it's expected to soon capture the key Syrian border city of Kobani.

Carter also argued it would be strategic to have troops on the ground in Syria to help guide the air campaign. Obama, however, has pledged that the United States would not send troops into the country.

"You have to have somebody on the ground to direct our missiles and to be sure you have the right target," Carter said. "Then you have to have somebody to move in and be willing to fight ISIS after the strikes."

How could Obama have 'underestimated' ISIS?

More broadly, Carter criticized Obama's foreign policy, an approach that he says is lacking in "positive action."

"It changes from time to time," Carter said. "I noticed that two of his secretaries of defense, after they got out of office, were very critical of the lack of positive action on the part of the president."

While it's rare for former presidents to critique the sitting president, Carter has been known to offer candid assessments of Democratic and Republican presidents and their administrations.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/08/polit ... homepage-t

[Anthea]

The Guardian

Battle for Kobani rages as US-led air strikes pound Isis positions

Kurdish fighters regain several areas of the Syrian border town as White House admits limitations of air assault against militants
(Anthea: unsure about this it could just be media hype )

The US-led coalition is pounding Islamic State (Isis) in the Syrian border town of Kobani with some of its most intense air strikes so far, according to a Kurdish official and an activist group.

But the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that despite overnight air strikes Isis fighters had captured a police station in the east of the town and now controlled one-third of Kobani.

Idriss Nassan, an official with the town’s Kurdish government, said the police station was taken but that it was later destroyed in a strike. He said the Kurdish fighters managed to regain several other areas of the town on Thursday.

The Isis onslaught on Kobani, which started in mid-September, has forced some 200,000 people to flee the area.

The latest air strikes come after the White House admitted on Wednesday that military advances by Isis in Syria showed the limits of America’s policy to “roll back” its fighters without committing US ground troops. But it insisted that a long-term coalition strategy would defeat the militant group.

“There are limitations associated with the exclusive use of air power,” said President Obama’s spokesman, Josh Earnest. “Our strategy [in Syria] is reliant on something that is not yet in place … a Syrian opposition that can take the fight to Isil [Isis],” he added.

Speaking at the Pentagon after a meeting with top generals, Obama said: “It remains a difficult mission. As I’ve indicated from the start, this is not something that is going to be solved overnight.”

The increasing gloom about short-term prospects for Kobani was echoed by the secretary of state, John Kerry, who met the UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, in Washington to discuss a British offer to help train other Syrian rebel groups to take on Isis.

But Hammond suggested there was limited appetite for direct British military intervention in Syria and called instead for Turkey to do more to tackle the deepening crisis on its border. “We would need to see a military need, something we could do that is not already being done, and we would need to be persuaded that in the grand scheme of things it is better for the UK to dilute its effort between Syria and Iraq rather than concentrating on Iraq as we are at the moment,” he said.

“We would also frankly need to be in a position where public and parliamentary opinion in the UK was supportive … We would want to have a sense that public opinion has moved to a point where it would be supportive of such action.”

Hammond called on Turkey to support Kurdish forces operating in Syria, despite fears of their links to separatists operating in Turkey. The call is likely to be echoed tomorrow when the US general John Allen visits Ankara for talks.

“The Kurdish elements within Syria are an important part of the equation in holding the line against Isil and clearly the Turks, because they are physically contiguous, can assist with the supply of equipment and support to them,” said Hammond.

But the US and UK gave a mixed response to Turkish requests for a Nato-enforced buffer zone on the Syrian border to help deal with the flow of refugees. “It’s worth examining. It’s worth looking at very, very closely,” said Kerry, who claimed it would be on the agenda when Allen visited Turkey.

In contrast, Earnest said a buffer zone was “not something under consideration right now”.

The Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, called for “strategic patience” in assessing Isis progress in Syria. “Air strikes alone are not going to save the town of Kobani,” he said. “There’s an element of strategic patience needed.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/o ... rikes-isis

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

Kobane: US and UK warn of air strike limitations

The US and UK have warned that air strikes alone will not prevent Islamic State (IS) fighters from seizing the strategic Syrian town of Kobane.

A Pentagon spokesman said the US and its allies were "doing everything we can from the air" but there were limits to what the campaign could achieve.

Similar views were expressed by British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.

A Kurdish leader in Kobane said IS had entered two more districts overnight, bringing in heavy weapons.

Seizing the town would give IS jihadists full control of a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.

The US also appeared to be at odds with allies over a Turkish idea to create a buffer zone or safe haven along the Syrian side of the border.

France has said it supports the idea but the White House said it was "not something that is under consideration right now".

Three weeks of fighting over Kobane have cost the lives of at least 400 people, and forced more than 160,000 Syrians to flee across the border to Turkey.

'No effective partner'

"Air strikes alone are not going to save the town of Kobane," Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm John Kirby said. "We know that and we've been saying that over and over again."

He said that ultimately rebel fighters in Syria and Iraqi troops would have to defeat IS militants, but it would take time.

"We don't have a willing, capable, effective partner on the ground inside Syria right now," he said, warning that other towns could also fall to IS.

Likewise, Mr Hammond said that it was "never envisaged" that the use of air power "in this battle would turn the tide in the short-term".

"I don't want to suggest that there is anything readily that the coalition can do that will make a fundamental difference... in the tactical situation that's faced around Kobane," he said.

Asya Abdullah, a co-leader of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party representing Syrian Kurds in Kobane, said that on Wednesday night IS entered two districts of Kobane with heavy weapons, including tanks.

"Civilians may have died because there are very intense clashes," she said. Another official there said IS had seized some buildings in the east and that there was fierce fighting with Kurdish forces.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said IS had advanced about 100m (320ft) towards the town centre on Wednesday evening.

It added that IS was bringing in reinforcements from its stronghold in Raqqa province.

The US Central Command said in a statement late on Wednesday that eight coalition air strikes had hit targets in Kobane. It said five IS armed vehicles, an IS supply depot and other buildings had been destroyed.

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, told ABC News that IS was becoming "more savvy".

"We have been striking when we can. They don't fly flags and move around in large convoys the way they did. They don't establish headquarters that are visible or identifiable."

Meanwhile, Turkey remains under intense pressure to do more to help Kurdish forces in Kobane.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and President Obama's envoys to the coalition against IS are in Ankara for talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on possible Turkish action.

In a BBC interview a senior Kurdish politician in Turkey, Meral Daniss Bestas, called for "a safe corridor for Kurds to supply arms and humanitarian aid to Kobane".

At least 19 people have been killed in Kurdish protests over Turkey's role.



Kurds are angry that Turkey has prevented Kurdish fighters crossing the border to fight IS in Kobane and some protesters want it to take military action against IS.

Fighting between police and demonstrators continued in Istanbul throughout Wednesday night, with protesters congregating in mostly Kurdish districts.

Protesters hurled petrol bombs at police, who responded with water cannon and tear gas.

Last week Turkey's parliament also authorised military action against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria, but so far no action has been taken.

Turkey wants a buffer zone along the Turkish border inside Syria - enforced by a no-fly zone - to ensure security and ease the refugee influx into Turkey.

Link to photos and Videos

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29546714

[Anthea]

Rudaw

ISIS Renews Assault on Kobane as Kurdish Riots Rage in Turkey
By Jonathon Burch


Protesters in Turkey called for an effective action against the besiegement by ISIS

MURSITPINAR, Turkey – Islamic State (ISIS) militants launched a fresh offensive inside the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobane overnight, seizing control of a market area in the east, a monitoring group said on Thursday, after U.S.-led airstrikes appeared to have pushed the jihadists back earlier in the day.

From this Turkish border town, the sound of heavy gunfire and shelling could be heard late into the night from just across the frontier and plumes of black smoke could be seen rising from several parts of the Syrian town.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said ISIS fighters had advanced up to 70 meters inside the eastern edge of Kobane, capturing the al-Hal market in the town's industrial zone, after receiving military reinforcements from the outside.

The jihadists have laid siege to the predominantly Kurdish town for more than three weeks, capturing villages in the surrounding countryside and sending up to 200,000 refugees flooding into Turkey. On Monday, the insurgents entered Kobane for the first time after breaching Kurdish militia defence lines.

The U.S. military said it had carried out eight air strikes together with Jordan on ISIS targets near Kobane on Wednesday, destroying five armed vehicles, a supply depot, command and logistics compounds, and eight occupied barracks. However, indications that the strikes had managed to stall the militants' advance appeared to be short-lived.

An increase in U.S.-led strikes in and around Kobane in recent days have done little to stop the advance of ISIS, who now control a large swath of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq. Turkey has warned Kobane could soon fall unless ground troops are sent in, although its own army stationed along the border has so far shown no sign of intervening.

Despite pledges not to let the town be overrun by the jihadists, Ankara's seeming ambivalence to the fate of Kobane, has caused a backlash among many of Turkey's own 15 million Kurds, who say the government is just standing by while their kinsmen are killed across the frontier.

Violent street riots have erupted in cities across Turkey in which at least 21 people have been killed, including 10 in Diyarbakir, known as Amed in Kurdish, the main city in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast. Night curfews not seen in Turkey for decades have been imposed in several Kurdish districts.

Turkey has said it could send in ground troops to Syria but only if its demands are met first, including the creation of a no-fly zone in the north of the country and assurances from allies that air strikes will also extend to Syrian regime targets. Ankara sees the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as crucial to defeating ISIS.

But Washington has shown little interest in Ankara's longstanding request for a no-fly zone and no longer sees ousting Assad as a top priority. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the U.S. government believed Turkey was using excuses not to do more in the fight against ISIS and that it was urging Ankara to take a more robust role.

The impasse has laid bare a deep sense of mistrust among many Kurds in Turkey of their government, who they believe is actively helping ISIS, charges Ankara strongly denies. Most Kurds do not want the Turkish military to intervene directly in Kobane but instead want it to open up a supply route for weapons and fighters to the besieged town through Turkish soil.

But Turkey is also wary of helping the Kurds in Syria because of their links to Kurdish militants in Turkey, fearing this would embolden their calls for more autonomy. Ankara is currently engaged in tentative peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting the Turkish state for three decades.

Kurds in Turkey enjoy more rights now than ever before and the country has witnessed relative calm over the last 18 months since the PKK's jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, called a ceasefire. However, he warned last week that the peace process would end if Kobane was allowed to fall, a position shared by many Kurds.

“With Kobane, the government has opened a direct war against the Kurds. Our president, under the banner of Islam, has tricked us by offering a fake peace process. After this we will resist. There will be a return to the early 90s,” said one Kurdish man on the Turkish side of the border, referring to one of the bloodiest periods in the war between the PKK and the Turkish state.

More than 40,000 people have been killed, mostly Kurds, since the PKK took up arms against the state. The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Meanwhile the battle inside Kobane shows no sign of abating. Ambulances with sirens wailing continued to ferry scores of injured fighters from the border to a nearby Turkish hospital on Wednesday, as friends and relatives, who had fled in the preceding weeks, waited anxiously to see whether it was their loved ones who had been brought in.

“My niece is over there fighting. She left university eight months ago to go and help. I come here every day to see if she has been brought in,” said one Kurdish man from Bitlis, a city around 400 km to the east. “Of course I supported her going. What else is there to do but fight?”

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/09102014