ISIS- SYRIA-THREAD

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Reliable source:

ATTACKS INTENSIFIED

ISIS GROUPS HAVE STARTED BURNING HOUSES

AND OTHER PROPERTY INSIDE KOBANI

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Mail Online

Now Turkey must join the fight, says Fallon: Defence Secretary says UK and US will put pressure on country to move against Isis
By Jason Groves

Michael Fallon says UK would 'certainly like to see Turkey more involved'
Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu rules out unilateral offensive
But says US-led bombing missions against Isis in Syria won't be enough

Turkey last night warned it was ‘unrealistic’ to expect it to launch a ground offensive against Islamic State without support from other Nato members.

Britain and the United States have been pressing Turkey for weeks to play a major military role against the extremists who have now advanced to within less than a mile of its border with Syria.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon yesterday said Britain wanted Turkey to become ‘more involved’ in the fight against Isis.

But Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has ruled out a unilateral offensive.

Speaking after talks in Ankara with Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg he warned that the US-led bombing missions against Isis forces in Syria would not be enough, but said that Turkey would not get involved at this stage.

‘You need to take into consideration all options, including an operation on the ground,’ he said. ‘You cannot expect Turkey to do a land operation. This is not a realistic approach.’

Turkey has the second largest army in Nato but has chosen to stand by and watch the ferocious battle for the Syrian border town of Kobani, which is besieged by Isis fanatics.

There has been growing frustration among members of the US-led coalition being assembled against Isis at the reluctance of Turkey to intervene, despite having forces positioned on the border.

One British defence source last night said Turkey appeared to be waiting for an attack by Isis in order to invoke Nato’s principle of collective self-defence, which could drag the entire military alliance into the war.

Mr Fallon yesterday confirmed that Britain and the US would be stepping up pressure on Turkey to take the initiative against Isis.

‘Turkey certainly could help,’ he said. ‘It’s a matter for Turkey, but other allies in the region have been helping.

'From the south, some of the Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia were helping in American strikes and in the end, yes, this is a situation that can only be resolved not just by America and by Britain but by the region itself.

‘So we’d certainly like to see Turkey more involved, but in the end that’s obviously a decision for their government.

He went on: ‘They’re certainly very aware of the situation in Kobani, the desperate situation there, and obviously we’ll have to see whether they can help more...

‘Every country comes to this from its own position. They’ve obviously had difficulties with Kurdish extremism in the past; they’ve had hostages very recently and so on.

‘But clearly every country in the region has got to see now what it can do to contribute to deal with Isil [ISIS]. Otherwise we will have Iraq falling apart and Syria falling apart and that is a danger to the entire region.’

Mr Fallon also confirmed that Britain is working with the United States to set up military training camps for ‘moderate’ Syrian fighters elsewhere in the Middle east.

He said: ‘We are looking, with the United States, at training of the moderate Syrians that we can identify, but outside Syria.

'Providing training in camps elsewhere in the Middle East, where we can train those in community self-defence in being able to resist Isil [Isis], but doing that outside Syria and then putting them back into the fight in Syria, and we’re trying to identify that effort at the moment.

‘There’s the Free Syrian Army, there are moderate elements in that, and there are other places in the Middle East where they could be trained, in Jordan for example, in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. That’s something we’re looking at very urgently now.’

Mr Fallon acknowledeged that Isis has to be defeated in both Iraq and Syria, but said ministers do not believe that Parliament is ready to authorise the extension of military action into Syria.

‘We don’t have authority from Parliament to operate in Syria at the moment. Our judgment at the moment is that Parliament wouldn’t give us that authority,’ he said.

Madeleine Moon, a labour member of the Commons defence committee, said there was no case for further British intervention until Turkey stepped up to take its share of responsibility.

She said: ‘Let’s talk about Turkey’s role – they won’t even let us fly our jets to help, so they have to fly from Cyprus. There is no good that can come from Britain taking unilateral action.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... paign=1490

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Mail Online

Prejudice, hatred and why Turkey won't do anything about the barbarians on its border
By Michael Burleigh

Nearly 200,000 people have been forced to abandon their homes and flee the town, joining 1.5million Syrian refugees already in Turkey.

Poorly equipped Kurdish fighters — men, women and even children — try in vain with AK-47s to hold back the maniacal hordes of Islamic State fighters, firing the equivalent of popguns against the terrorist group’s modern, heavy-grade, American weapons.

By yesterday, IS had taken a third of the Syrian Kurdish stronghold of Kobane on the border with Turkey.


Calamity: An Islamic State flag (top centre, in black) flies above Kobane on the border of Turkey and Syria

U.S. and Arab planes and drones have been targeting IS positions, but to little avail.

U.S. General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accepts the town could fall, leaving its remaining citizens facing rape, murder and torture at the hands of the barbarians besieging it.

All the while, just a few hundred yards over the border, Turkish troops look on. As IS fighters stalk the deserted streets of the town, Turkish tanks in sight of the calamity stand idle.

Turkey’s inaction as Kobane falls has provoked worldwide fury. Kurdish expats have taken to the streets throughout the country, and 19 people have died in violent clashes against the government’s troops and police.

The White House has ‘voiced concern’ about Turkey’s reluctance to engage IS, even though it has its own parliament’s approval to do so.

Less diplomatically, a U.S. official told the New York Times: ‘This isn’t how a Nato ally acts while hell is unfolding a stone’s throw from its border.’

It does, indeed, seem outrageous that Turkey, the second-largest land power in Nato with 290,000 troops, and a candidate for EU membership, is doing nothing to prevent a massacre on its doorstep.

Why does it view the prospect of IS’s dreaded black banner fluttering over a town near its border with such apparent equanimity?

The main reason — and it is a very simple one — is that Turkey hates the 1.3 million Syrian Kurds more than it hates IS.

Turkey is home to some 15 million Kurds — about 20 per cent of its population — many of whom are locked in a violent secessionist battle with the Turkish government.


Demonstration: Kurdish protesters shout slogans during a rally in the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk,
to show support for Kobani, calling for swift action to save the Syrian town from the grip of Islamic State militants

What Turkey really fears is that the Syrian Kurds will establish their own state on the Turkey/Syria border, which could prove deeply destablising to a country with such a large Kurdish population. Anything — even IS — that weakens the Syrian Kurds reduces that threat.

Turkey has for 30 years fought a brutal war against the far-Left militant Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK, until a fragile ceasefire was declared in 2013.

In those blood-soaked decades, 40,000 people were killed in vicious fighting that involved suicide bombers on the terrorist PKK side, the flattening of Kurdish villages on the other — and widespread allegations of torture on both.

What makes Turkey particularly reluctant to defend the Syrian Kurds in Kobane is that they are allied to the PKK, and committed to a Kurdish homeland.

This explains why Turkish border guards have been stopping PKK militia and other Kurdish fighters from joining their Syrian kinsmen in Kobane to fight IS.

And why, in contrast, they turned a blind eye to foreign jihadis flying into Turkey to take the long bus journey over the border to Syria — not to mention the 3,000 Turks who have joined IS after being recruited in rundown provincial towns.

Turkey’s response to IS was certainly complicated by the terrorists’ seizure of 49 Turkish hostages in Syria. But rather than refuse to negotiate, the Turks exchanged them for 180 imprisoned IS sympathisers.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has made it plain he sees no moral difference between the Kurds in Kobane and IS.

‘It is wrong to view them differently, we need to deal with them jointly,’ he told journalists in Istanbul.

‘Erdogan hates the Syrian Kurds,’ says one diplomat involved in trying to build the anti-IS alliance. ‘He thinks they’re worse than IS.’

Meanwhile, Gilles de Kerchove, the EU’s counter-terrorism co-ordinator, said: ‘The Syrian Kurds are a big concern for Erdogan because he is not done with the PKK.’

It’s true, the PKK are hardly a bunch of angels.


Clashes: Protesters demonstrating against Turkey's policy in Syria run as
Turkish riot police use water cannons and tear gas in Diyarbakir, Turkey, on Tuesday

Both the EU and U.S. have designated them a terrorist organisation. The irony is that the West is now implicitly relying on PKK fighters to relieve Kobane. And the fact is that, until IS came along, the Syrian Kurds were getting ever closer to their dreams of an autonomous state.

In the chaos of the Syrian civil war, they had declared their own statelet, calling it ‘Rojava’, which straddled Syria’s northern border with Turkey like a series of cantons.

An embattled President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, locked in a lethal war with IS, tolerated this arrangement, which put Kobane right in the centre of the statelet. Little wonder IS considers the town to be of such strategic significance.

The Syrian Kurds had taken their lead from Kurds in northern Iraq, who have established their own thriving and virtually autonomous regime in an oil-rich region now known as Iraqi Kurdistan.

The difference, however, is that Turkey does not see the Iraqi Kurds — who will have nothing to do with the PKK — as a threat.

Indeed, Ankara has invested hugely in the region and become increasingly dependent on Kurdistan’s oil and gas to fuel its own growth.

In contrast, Turkey fears that any concession to the Syrian Kurds will fuel demands from its own restive Kurdish population for autonomy.

On top of all this, you have the autocratic and self-determined nature of Mr Erdogan who, in a move reminiscent of Russia’s President Putin, appointed himself president this summer after serving 12 years as prime minister.

No Turkish leader since the death in 1938 of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, has invested himself with such power as Erdogan. But whereas Ataturk wanted to distance Turkey from its religious heritage, turning it into a power player in modern Europe, Erdogan has very different ideas.

As part of his general social conservative push, Erdogan has been trying to re-orientate the country away from the decadent West and towards the Arab world, which the Ottoman Turks ruled for centuries.


Up in flames: A fire blazes in the street in Diyarbakir, Turkey. Kurdish protesters clashed
with police in Turkey leaving at least a dozen people dead and scores injured on Tuesday

With his ambition to revive of Turkey’s once-great power status, Erdogan has allied the country not only with the conservative Sunni Muslims of Saudi Arabia, but with the Muslim Brotherhood regime of former President Morsi in Egypt, and with the Sunni militant Palestinian group Hamas.

In doing so, he destroyed Turkey’s good relations with Israel, a staunch ally of the Kurds.

Relations with the newly elected military regime in Egypt are grim, too. Erdogan’s emotional pull towards Sunni Arabs means he is implacably opposed to Syria’s President Assad, who is an ally of Shia Iran, and explains why he is so keen to back Assad’s enemies, even if that means backing IS.

That is why he is telling the U.S. that only if America extends its intervention in Syria to toppling Assad will he move a muscle to help the Kurds in Kobane.

Erdogan will drive a very hard bargain before he contemplates any military action, not least because the Turks realise that while Western intervention comes and goes in the Middle East, Turkish intervention in Syria could involve the country in an intractable war that lasts decades.

This, then, is the country which the West hopes will put men on the ground to repulse IS.

Some hope. For as well as supporting the terrorists, Turkey has been allowing British jihadis to cross its borders, while simultaneously claiming to join the anti-IS coalition.

Tragically for President Obama and the West, at this terrifying moment when IS appears to be unstoppable, Turkey is also the country that holds most of the cards.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... order.html

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The Economist

While Kobane burns

The reluctance to strike IS may redound on Turkey’s president

THE contrast could not be starker. On one side of a barbed-wire fence, beneath plumes of smoke from air strikes and amid the rattle of gunfire, the bearded fighters of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) closed their grip on Kobane, a Kurdish town on Syria’s northern border. On the other Turkey’s soldiers, with tanks and armoured personnel carriers, nonchalantly watch the show, stirring only to fire tear gas and beat back Kurdish protesters wanting to help their Syrian brethren.

The reluctance of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to aid Kobane—even in the name of supporting his American allies as they give air support to the beleaguered defenders—is as obstinate as it is puzzling. It is also counter-productive, given that it drives a wedge between Turkey and America and heightens tension with Turkey’s own Kurdish minority. It may yet rekindle Turkish Kurds’ long but now dormant insurgency.

Mr Erdogan says any help to the Syrian Kurds depends on them abandoning their de facto alliance with the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad, and joining the mainstream rebel alliance seeking to overthrow him. There were hopes in early October that this position would be softened after secret talks took place in Turkey between Syrian Kurds and assorted Turkish diplomats and spooks. The officials are said to have tentatively agreed to allow weapons from other Kurdish-run enclaves to transit Turkey and be delivered to the besieged forces of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protections Units (YPG). But Mr Erdogan, who seems to defer to the country’s more hawkish generals on Kurdish matters these days, is said to have quashed the idea. He also told America, which has been conducting air strikes in defence of Kobane, that they would not get Turkish help unless they agreed to target Mr Assad as well as IS., and set up a no-fly zone.

His inaction is stirring Kurdish accusations that Mr Erdogan is either co-operating with IS’s jihadists, or at least fears them less than he does the YPG, an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has waged a decades-long insurgency for self-rule in Turkey. Yet Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, has warned that peace talks with the Turkish government would end if the jihadists were allowed to prevail. On October 7th young Kurds went on a rampage, burning vehicles, looting shops, and hurling Molotov cocktails and rocks at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons. More than 20 died.

Tanks and armoured vehicles were deployed to impose curfews in the predominantly Kurdish cities of Diyarbakir, Batman, Bingol, and Van, as well as other areas. Mr Erdogan’s calculation that the Kurds cannot afford to open a second front against Turkey while they are grappling with the jihadists is being tested. Mr Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development party may be hurt by the turmoil, especially if it scares off foreign investors before parliamentary elections due to be held next summer.

A sinister dimension is the fact that most of those killed in street violence died in clashes between sympathisers of rival Kurdish groups—the PKK on one side and Huda-Par, a pro-Islamic group, on the other. Huda-Par has links to an armed Kurdish faction known as Hizbullah (unconnected to the militia in Lebanon); in the 1990s it fought a nasty war against the PKK that left thousands of Kurds dead. Turkey’s “deep state,” dominated by rogue generals, is widely believed to have egged on the Islamists against their nationalist brethren. Mr Erdogan’s much-vaunted peace process with the Kurds is fast collapsing.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-ea ... bane-burns

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BBC News Middle East

Islamic State: The difficulties facing coalition air strikes

Islamic State (IS) fighters renewed their advance in the Syrian border town of Kobane on Wednesday, with the US warning that air strikes alone cannot save it.

As Newsnight's diplomatic editor Mark Urban reports, the air campaign by the US-led coalition is arguably inefficient, with planes based far away from their targets.

With limited intelligence of IS positions, only 90 of the campaign's first 949 missions resulted in attacks.

So what does the future hold for the campaign?

phpBB [video]

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The Telegraph

Destroying Islamic State means boots on the ground

It will take a proper offensive, aided by British troops, to nullify the menace of the Islamic State as it besieges Kobane on the Turkish border


By Con Coughlin

With every day that passes in the bitter battle for Kobane, the inadequacy of the West’s response to the challenge posed by Islamic State (Isil) militants becomes ever more obvious.

Having opted to rely almost exclusively on air power to – as David Cameron put it – “degrade and destroy” Isil, Western policymakers must be deeply alarmed that the militants have been able to enter the outskirts of the Syrian town despite being regularly bombed by US warplanes.

The situation on the ground, where Kurdish fighters are desperately opposing the Islamist onslaught, is now so dire that American General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warns that the town is in imminent danger of capture.

Gen Dempsey, who fought in both previous Iraq conflicts, in 1991 and 2003, is one of several prominent military officers – from both sides of the Atlantic – who have argued that Isil is unlikely to be defeated by air power alone.

And yet, with Kobane on the point of collapse, politicians in Washington and London are still clinging to the fiction that Isil can be defeated without the use of “boots on the ground” – the odious political shorthand for combat forces.

What they really mean is that there will be no British or American boots on the ground. Kurdish, Iraqi, Syrian, Shia or any other “boots” that are prepared to take on the maniacal Isil fanatics, however, are all most welcome.

This deep-seated aversion to committing any ground forces is the legacy of the massively unpopular military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, where public support, which was initially strong in both nations, quickly faded once it became clear that there would be no swift and easy victory.

Dealing with the Isil threat, which now extends directly to the streets of London following this week’s arrest of several men said to be plotting terror attacks, promises to be even more drawn out, with Mr Cameron recently warning that “this is the struggle of our generation”. It is also a great deal more complex than the challenges we faced in the other campaigns, where the fight was essentially focused on a clearly defined enemy.

Yet in the year since Isil first emerged as a major threat, we still do not have a clear idea of the organisation’s strength or composition. Some estimates put the total number of fighters at 10,000, others at 50,000. The 500 Britons said to be fighting with Isil are more of an estimate than an accurate figure, and the fact that the movement does not recognise fixed borders makes it all the more difficult to track.

If Isil succeeds in capturing Kobane, it will have uncontested control of a swath of Arabian territory stretching almost from the Mediterranean littoral to the mighty Euphrates river in eastern Iraq.

We would have a far better idea of the type of enemy we faced, and the military assets needed to deal with it, if only our politicians would wake up to the extent of the challenge and get over their hang-up about deploying combat troops. But such is their determination to avoid being dragged into another unpopular war that the only ground forces they are prepared to tolerate are foreign proxies, such as the Kurds, whom we now expect to do all the fighting on our behalf.

The fundamental flaw in this approach was evident yesterday, when Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, suggested that Turkey should become more involved in the battle for Kobane raging on the other side of the border. Mr Fallon, like so many of his Westminster colleagues, is simply clutching at straws: why should the Turks have an interest in helping the Kurds to defeat Isil? Ankara’s long-standing obsession has been to prevent them from establishing their own state, and any military intervention by the Turks against Isil would simply strengthen the Kurds’ hand.

This is but one example of the limitations of a policy in which the West hopes that others will fight its wars on its behalf. The reality, and one that will become abundantly clear the longer this conflict continues, is that if Britain and its allies are really serious about defeating Isil, they must do some of the dirty work themselves – and not just from the relative safety of 20,000 feet.

No one is saying that we need to launch a massive ground offensive on the scale of Iraq and Afghanistan. But having just a small number of well-armed Western troops to assist the Kurds and other groups fighting on the ground could make all the difference in defeating this resilient and well-organised Islamist menace.

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

[Anthea]

Bombs and missiles could have prevented the Islamic State's tanks and other vehicles from ever reaching Kobani - the ground around Kobani is fairly open and nowhere for approaching tanks to hide - they could be seen from a few miles away heading towards Kobani through open farm land

Everybody knew that the Islamic State were heading towards Kobani - a hint would have been all the small villages IS took over on route to Kobani

NOBODY DID ANYTHING

Apart from some Kurdish groups that organised protests

But a month ago most Kurds were too lazy and too apathetic to join in the protests - if they had turned up in vast numbers they might well have woken the world up to the slaughter that was taking place - much of the slaughter could have been prevented

Now America and others are bombing Kobani itself - killing even more innocent people - killing innocent animals - destroying building - making sure that there is nothing left for the people of Kobani to return to - and what America has not destroyed the Islamic State is setting fire to

The terrible delay in support has cost the people of Kobani everything - and I do mean EVERYTHING - their families - their friends - their homes - their belongings - their business - their entire way of life

I think that the people of Kobani should be able to make a claim against Turkey - through an international court - for the complete rebuilding of Kobani as Turkey ae to blame for it's destruction

I have NEVER agreed with the bombing - bombing kills too many innocent people

Troops should have been put in so they could at least have some idea who they are actually killing

Turkey is part of NATO and as such should have helped the people of Kobani and the surrounding villages - instead of preventing any help from reaching Kobani

TURKEY SHOULD BE TRIED FOR THE PREVENTION OF AID TO THE PEOPLE OF KOBANI

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ADDENDUM:

Turkey has already been tried and found guilty in the hearts of Kurds everywhere

Some Turkish kebab shops in England have already been attacked

I am certain this will spread to other countries

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phpBB [video]

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Link to excellent map showing recent activities in Syria

http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/fr/map/des ... 115/40.551

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EKud

Why Kobani Matters
Dr. Sabah Salih — Special to Ekurd.net

Just look at the two sides in this conflict. On one side, we have mass murderers, mass rapists, enslavers of women, destroyers of orchards and homes and schools, gangsters at war with decency, civility, beauty, and, above all, with the life of the mind. Even elementary thinking is alien to them. They slaughter the defenseless and call it valor. They pillage and burn and it call victory. Beyond the language of blood they have nothing else to say. They live in the twenty-first century. They may know how to navigate the social media, produce slick images, and use modern weaponry. They may even have a degree in science or business or medicine. But their mental life belongs to a time period in human history when unhidden sadism inflicted on dissenters and prisoners—like quartering them, dropping them into boiling oil, gouging their eyes out—was an acceptable form of public entertainment, a time also when women were treated like cattle.

On the other, we have the defenders of Kobani—men and women committed to spreading and defending the fruits of the humanitarian revolution: liberation from non-human power, from religious superstition, from racial and sexual bigotry, from language that prohibits thought, from doctrines that never cease to insult the human mind and dignity, from parochialism, from intellectual cowardliness, from jingoism, from demagoguery—but, above all, from injustice.

The defenders of Kobani are not just fighting on their own behalf; they are taking a stand against the enemies of progress, civilization, liberation, enlightenment, rational thinking, and, I repeat, human dignity. I know, I know, these days in Western academic and journalisticwww.Ekurd.net circles none of these can be mentioned without a sneer. But this only shows how out of touch these circles are with the things that matter the most, things that are right in front of their noses.

Let these people obfuscate Kobani all day long, but that won’t change the fact that Kobani is the defining struggle of our time. The conquering of Kobani by devotees of irrational authoritarianism would, no doubt, give Islamists of all stripes a great deal to smile about. But that would be a major defeat for secular humanism, with ramifications way beyond Kurdistan.

Dr. Sabah Salih is Professor of English at Bloomsburg University, Pennsylvania, USA. Dr. Salih is a longtime contributing writer for Ekurd.net.

Copyright © 2014 Ekurd.net

http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/mi ... y8.twitter

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We should feel sorry for Turkey

It does not have enough weapons or manpower to help Kobani

It only has:

Tanks: 3,657
Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFVs): 8,532
Self-Propelled Guns (SPGs): 961
Towed-Artillery: 2,152
Multiple-Launch Rocket Systems (MLRSs): 646

Total Aircraft: 989
Fighters/Interceptors: 254
Fixed-Wing Attack Aircraft: 254
Transport Aircraft: 437
Trainer Aircraft: 245
Helicopters: 418
Attack Helicopters: 36

Total Naval Strength: 115
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Frigates: 16
Destroyers: 0
Corvettes: 8
Submarines: 14
Coastal Defense Craft: 50
Mine Warfare: 19

Defense Budget: $18,185,000,000

Figures taken from Turkey's own military web site

http://www.globalfirepower.com/country- ... _id=Turkey

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Reuters

UN envoy calls on Turkey to prevent massacre in Kobani

Oct 10 (Reuters) - The U.N. envoy for Syria called on Friday on Turkey to allow volunteers to cross the Syrian border to prevent Islamic State fighters carrying out a massacre in Kobani, where 500-700 mostly elderly people were sheltering.

"Everybody should do whatever they can to stop this," Staffan di Mistura told a news conference in Geneva. "I hope we will not see people beheaded."

(Reporting by Tom Miles, editing by John Stonestreet)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/ ... X520141010

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The Independent

Isis in Kobani:
Despair over those still trapped inside the town as militants adapt their tactics to survive US air strikes

Kobani continues to burn. Civilians go hungry, trapped between air strikes, mortar shelling and street battles.

The desperate situation shows no sign of improving, as Isis has held the eastern third of the city, where its black flag still flies. “The air strikes destroy everything 200 metres around where they hit. Mortars from Isis are coming all the time – sometimes the bombs are near us. It’s fate – sometimes we live, other times we may die,” Mustafa Bortan, 37, told The Independent from his home in the south of the city.

The father of five took his family to safety in Turkey before crossing back to support the Kurdish fighters defending his besieged town. Now, faced with a lack of supplies, he says food is growing increasingly limited and the residents are forced to drink rain water.

“For some people, it’s been two days without eating anything. Before, from the Turkish side, the border was open and we could get food, but now we can’t,” he said. “Today I managed to visit my friends and they had canned meat to share. There’s no bread.”

In pictures: Fighting between Kurds and Isis intensifies in Kobani

Isis have also gained the strategic Mistanur hill which overlooks the city, after a fierce fight with the YPG (the People’s Protection Units), the Syrian franchise of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Still keeping vigil from the Turkish side of the border with Syria are Turkish and Kurdish relatives of those still inside Kobani, stoically watching and listening to the crackle of gunfire and the booms of the strikes.

Memet Ozdemir, 45, keeps trying to reach his uncle, still trapped inside. “I try to call and try to call, but I can’t get an answer,” he said.

In Suruc too, YPG losses are felt acutely. Today nine YPG fighters, including two women, were buried in Suruc. Local reports said most had died from sniper shots to the head. More of the dead are expected to be buried today.

Ambulance drivers say they are being made to wait for hours before being able to pick up the wounded from the border, an accusation repeated by Mustafa Bortan. “A wall collapsed when their house was bombed and they were crushed – we didn’t think they were going to die, but they had to wait at the border for hours and hours because the Turkish soldiers wouldn’t let them through. Four of them died waiting at the border,” he said.

Large crowds of mourners gathered to bury the dead, waving PKK flags. Anti-Turkish government sentiment ran high as they chanted: “If Kobani falls, it will be the grave of Erdogan.”

Support for the US, however, is strong, with many local Kurds referring to Obama as “Father Obama”. The US said there had been five air strikes in the south and west of Kobani today, destroying an Isis base and two vehicles, and hitting two groups of Isis fighters.

However, YPG sources say Isis fighters are becoming increasingly wise to the strikes and have started to set fire to houses near their bases in order to create a smokescreen. The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights reported the strikes had been successful in pushing Isis fighters back from some parts of Kobani.

But civilians are still fleeing the city, although many have waited for days to escape, hoping the situation would improve. Edule Isman said she waited for 10 days before deciding that it was time to come to Turkey. Cradling her infant son on her hip, the 28-year-old arrived at the municipality-run camp in Suruc. “I hoped everything would have been OK. We waited in the minefield on a patch that we knew was safe, because we knew that Isis couldn’t get us there,” she said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 85850.html

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Reliable source:

Kobane Chief Anwar Moslem, from Kobane: "Security zone (police building and court) has fallen into ISIS hands"

Chief inside city states Kurds urgently need following: "Air drop of weapons now, evacuate civilians, more air strikes"

According to Kobane Chief: "There are btwn 1000 to 3000 civilians in Kobane. Many more on border. Corridor needed to get them out"

ISIS now controls between 30 to 40% of Kobane"

Another still unconfirmed report:

Another report from Kurdish activists says ISIS now controls HQ of Democratic Union Party and municipal centre