ISIS- SYRIA-THREAD

[Anthea]

Guardian

‘What the Isis jihadis lose in strength from the air strikes they may gain in legitimacy’

The western-backed offensive against Isis has received a cynical reaction from people in the Middle East
Hassan Hassan

Since Islamic State (Isis) were formed in their current incarnation in April last year, they have had a dilemma: how to gain legitimacy from the local population while continuing to be ruthless and genocidal against fellow Sunnis. The decision by the American-led coalition to strike against Isis while overlooking the Assad regime seems to have resolved this dilemma for the jihadist organisation. What Isis will lose in terms of strength and numbers as a result of the air strikes they might gain in terms of legitimacy.

Air strikes against Isis were inevitable, as the group’s advances towards Baghdad, Erbil and northern Syria seemed irreversible by local forces. But the way the US-led coalition, which the UK has now joined, has conducted itself so far threatens to worsen the situation in favour of Isis.

Most importantly, by overlooking the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which caused the death of nearly 200,000 Syrians, the air strikes create the perception that the international coalition is providing a lifeline to the regime. Despite repeated reassurance by Washington, such a perception is likely to become entrenched if the Assad regime begins to fill the vacuum left by the offensive against Isis, especially that there has been no evidence yet that the opposition forces are part of the military strategy against Isis.

The regime might deliberately step up its campaign in some areas to retake areas it has recently lost to the jihadist group to reinforce that perception, as Syrian officials were quick to issue statements that the regime had been briefed about the air raids before they were launched.Many Syrian rebel factions, including ones directly financed by the Americans and the Gulf states, expressed reservations about, or opposition to, the air strikes, including Harakat Hazm, Division 13, Suqour al-Sham. The significance of such statements is that they are issued by groups currently operating in areas outside Isis control but which are adjacent to Isis front lines. That makes them more capable than other groups of being part of potential ground forces to attack Isis under air cover. Even though some of these groups made such pronouncements mostly for practical reasons, since they are the ones who will bear the consequences of any failure to dislodge Isis as they fight on the ground, they are also concerned that the international campaign will aid the Assad regime.

Regionally, the offensive against Isis has received a similar cynical reaction from groups and people in the Middle East. The Muslim Brotherhood, including prominent figures such as Doha-based Yusuf al-Qaradawi, condemned the attacks inside Syria. Arab countries that have participated in the international military campaign including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, have been particularly criticised for failing to push for a formula that undermines Isis and Assad at the same time. In comparison, Iran opposed the air strikes against Isis in Syria while Turkey made it clear that the offensive would fail without moves to undermine the Assad regime, including a no-fly zone.

These attitudes mean that Isis are set to gain from the international campaign against them, if the current strategy does not change. Based on conversations with people from eastern Syria, including Isis members and sympathisers, the offensive against Isis seems to have already achieved one thing for the jihadi group: to push some Isis members who were on the periphery into their core, and neutralise some of their Islamist opponents. Many of Isis members are new to the group and they are still ideologically uncertain. But since Isis are now face to face with a numerically exaggerated alliance led by Washington, Isis members who could otherwise shift away from the group have become more determined adherents.

Isis can afford to lose their supply lines, infrastructure and many of their members – who are likely to be among the ones who recently joined it – as long as they can compensate by achieving popular recognition. They are already adapting to the campaign, reducing checkpoints (now mostly mobile) to a minimum and relocating weapons warehouses to safe areas in both Iraq and Syria.

People inside Syria say most of the bases or facilities hit by air strikes had been already emptied. While the air raids will surely undermine Isis’s ability to generate revenue by disrupting supply lines from factories or oilfields, Isis can survive without such easy-money resources. Also, it is important to highlight that Isis have established an intricate sleeper cell system that has not been unveiled, even when they felt secure in their territories.

Legitimacy for the fight against Isis cannot be achieved by simply having Sunni countries involved in it, but, rather, by addressing the true reasons that drove tens of thousands of Syrians to rise up against the regime.

Regardless of who is involved in the campaign, the perception is that the allies have overlooked the acts of the Assad regime over the past three years and quickly assembled a major international coalition against a group that the Syrian rebels have been fighting since last summer. Unless the strategy against Isis shifts to a broader one that appeals to the local communities, the fight against it is doomed.

Hassan Hassan is an analyst with the Delma Institute, a research house in Abu Dhabi. @hxhassan

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... CMP=twt_gu

[Anthea]

Source spoke again to Kobane chief Anwar Moselm who is in city. "If we dont get help now, Kobane is indeed under threat of falling to ISIS

Source has been calling Mr. Answar Moslem for a week now for updates from inside Kobane. His tone is down today. He says "we'll fight till death"

[Anthea]

I think Salih Muslim should be in Kobani with the fighters

He is the person who keeps telling those in Kobani never to give up and die fighting

If he is the leader let him lead by example

[Anthea]

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

Aleppo Province: Ahraro al Sham Movement took control over the village of Abotbeh yesterday night after violent clashes with the regime forces leading to the death of 9 soldiers from the regime forces at least, information also reported casualties among the Ahraro al Sham fighters. This village is close to the town of Tal Abour and located 2 km from the Defense Factories.

Clashes erupted this morning between the brigade of al Akrad Front, the rebel and Islamic battalions against IS fighters in the vicinity of the Poultry area near the town of Dabeq which is held by IS.

The regime forces shelled yesterday night areas in the city of al Bab with no information about casualties so far.

The warplanes carried out a raid on al Mallah area in the northern countryside.

[Anthea]

The Daily Beast

Air Force Pilots Say They Have No ISIS Targets to Bomb

Obama’s no-boots-on-the-ground pledge is keeping America from fighting an effective air campaign in Iraq and Syria.

Within the U.S. Air Force, there’s mounting frustration that the air campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq is moving far more slowly than expected. Instead of the fast-moving operation with hundreds of sorties flown in a single day — the kind favored by many in the air service — American warplanes are hitting small numbers of targets after a painstaking and cumbersome process.

The single biggest problem, current and former Air Force officers say, is the so-called “kill-chain” of properly identifying and making sure the right target is being attacked. At the moment, that process is very complicated and painfully slow.

“The kill-chain is very convoluted,” one combat-experienced Air Force A-10 Warthog pilot told The Daily Beast. “Nobody really has the control in the tactical environment.”

A major reason why: the lack of U.S. ground forces to direct American air power against ISIS positions. Air power, when it is applied in an area where the enemy is blended in with the civilian population, works best when there are troops on the ground are able to call in strikes. From the sky, it can be hard to tell friend from foe. And by themselves, the GPS coordinates used to guide bombs aren’t nearly precise enough; landscape and weather can throw the coordinates off by as much as 500 feet. The planes need additional information from the guys on the ground. The only other option is to use laser-guided bombs, but even then the target has to be correctly indentified before hand.

But putting the specialized troops the Pentagon calls “Joint Terminal Air Controllers” or JTACs into combat comes with a cost. “The problem with putting JTACs on the ground is that once you get American boots on the ground, and one of those guys gets captured and beheaded on national TV or media,” the A-10 pilot said.

The Pentagon has compensated for this, in part, by easing back in Syria on the restrictive rules used minimizing civilian casualties like it is in Afghanistan. But in many other aspects, current and former Air Force personnel say, U.S. Central Command is fighting the war against ISIS in largely the same way it operates against the Taliban in Afghanistan. “The strategic problem posed by [ISIS] is different than that in Afghanistan,” one former senior Air Force official said. “So the similarity of the minimal application of airpower, along with excessive micromanagement by the CENTCOM bureaucracy is a symptom of not recognizing that this is a different strategic problem.”

After all, ISIS isn’t simply a collection of terrorists. The group holds territory, and manages an inventory of heavy military and civilian equipment. There’s a reason they call themselves the Islamic State. So instead of worrying about individual air strikes, this former official said, the CENTCOM needs to run a wider more free-ranging air war where more targets are hit much more quickly. “Very few in the military today have experience in planning and executing a comprehensive air campaign—their experience is only in the control of individual strikes against individual targets,” the official added. “There needs to be constant 24/7 overwatch, and immediate attack of any [ISIS] artillery, people, vehicles, or facilities that they are occupying.”

But that is a view shared mainly by those within the Air Force—which has, for decades, argued that it has the ability to win wars though strategic bombing.

Even in the case of the campaign against ISIS, there are many officers from the Army, Navy and even the Air Force who told The Daily Beast that they agree with the restraint shown by CENTCOM leadership — noting it is pointless to bomb the wrong target and antagonize the local population.

Further, the challenge for CENTCOM is further compounded by the lack of workable intelligence in Syria. It’s hard to untangle the convoluted alliances and entanglements between friend or foe. Often, so-called moderate rebel forces cooperate with the hardcore Islamic fighters in their fight against the Syrian government or even ISIS. (That’s why, late last month, a moderate camp was almost hit by an allied airstrike; the bombs were meant for the al Qaeda outpost next door.) Additionally, there is little to no cooperation or coordination with moderate rebel forces and the U.S. military.

Because of those factors, there are often too few suitable targets to attack, sources told The Daily Beast. A partial solution to that — even though it is not quite as effective as having troops on the ground — is to use an airborne controller. That usually means a low, slow flying warplane like the Air Force’s A-10 Warthog, which can stay in a target area for a long time and tell other aircraft where to drop their weapons. “It doesn’t have to be an A-10, it can be an Apache [attack helicopter], but they are slow and vulnerable — so that’s one drawback for a helicopter vice fixed-wing,” the A-10 pilot said.

He conceded that the Air Force does have some F-15E Strike Eagle supersonic fighter-bomber crews who are trained to do that mission too. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps also use the supersonic F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter to guide other jets to their targets.

Right now, there are no Warthogs deployed to the fight against ISIS, however the Indiana Air National Guard will send a dozen of the jets to the area this month. The Army, however, has deployed some AH-64 Apache gunships into Iraq to strike at ISIS from close in.

“We’re using AH-64s because they’re the best platform to get in and visually identify the targets and either take them out or designate for someone else to take them out,” said one former Army aviator with extensive Apache experience. “ISIS does have armor, so Hellfires [anti-tank missiles] will be very effective against them, and we all know how devastating a weapon the 30mm [cannon] is against troops.”

But the Apaches are short range and need maintenance troops to deploy with them into a location within Iraq itself. “The only disadvantage is contrary to President Obama, we definitely have ‘boots on the ground,’” the former Army officer said. “They’re unsupportable otherwise.”

There’s another reason the campaign against ISIS is proceeding slowly: the unwieldy coalition of foreign countries put together by the U.S. to fight in this new war. There are differing ways of doing things and different countries have different objectives, which makes for a long process, the A-10 pilot said.

There have also been instances during this air war when combat aircraft are not available in time to strike a target that pops up. For example, the A-10 pilot said, if a Predator drone finds a target, it can take warplanes like a B-1 bomber or an F-15E Strike Eagle fighter — up to two hours sometimes — to arrive at the target area. Often times, the target is simply gone by then. “You bring in assets like the A-10 or Apaches, and you bring them in close, that’s a whole lot easier to handle,” the A-10 pilot said. “That’s one way to speed it up.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -late.html

[Anthea]

Reuters

Thousands 'will most likely be massacred' if Kobani falls to jihadists, U.N. warns
GENEVA/MURSITPINAR

Thousands of people "will most likely be massacred" if Kobani falls to Islamic State fighters, a U.N. envoy said on Friday, as militants fought deeper into the besieged Syrian Kurdish town in full view of Turkish tanks that have done nothing to intervene.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said Kobani could suffer the same fate as the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, where 8,000 Muslims were killed by Serbs in 1995, Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two, while U.N. peacekeepers failed to protect them.

"If this falls, the 700, plus perhaps the 12,000 people, apart from the fighters, will be most likely massacred," de Mistura said. The United Nations believes 700 mainly elderly civilians are trapped in the town itself and 12,000 have left the centre but not made it across the border into Turkey.

"Do you remember Srebrenica? We do. We never forgot and probably we never forgave ourselves," said de Mistura, the U.N. peace envoy for Syria. "When there is an imminent threat to civilians, we cannot, we should not, be silent."

The plight of mainly Kurdish Kobani has unleashed the worst street violence in years in Turkey, which has 15 million Kurds of its own. Turkish Kurds have risen up since Tuesday against President Tayyip Erdogan's government, which they accuse of allowing their kin to be slaughtered.

At least 31 people have been killed in three days of riots across the mainly Kurdish southeast, including two police officers shot dead in an apparent attempt to assassinate a police chief. The police chief was wounded.

Intense fighting between Islamic State fighters and outgunned Kurdish forces in the streets of Kobani could be heard from across the border. Warplanes roared overhead and the western edge of town was hit by an air strike, apparently by U.S.-led coalition jets.

But even as Washington has increased its bombing of Islamic State targets in the area, it has acknowledged that its air support is unlikely to be enough to save the city from falling.

"TRAGIC REALITY"

"Our focus in Syria is in degrading the capacity of (Islamic State) at its core to project power, to command itself, to sustain itself, to resource itself," U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said. "The tragic reality is that in the course of doing that there are going to be places like Kobani where we may or may not be able to be effective."

Blinken said Islamic State controlled about 40 percent of Kobani. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, gave a similar estimate and said fighters had seized a central administrative area, known as the "security quarter".

Ocalan Iso, deputy head of the Kurdish forces defending the town, told Reuters that Islamic State fighters were still shelling the centre, which proved it had not yet fallen.

"There are fierce clashes and they are bombing the centre of Kobani from afar," he said, estimating the militants controlled 20 percent of the town. He called for more U.S.-led air strikes.

The Middle East has been transformed in recent months by Islamic State, a Sunni militant group that has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq, crucifying and beheading prisoners and ordering non-Muslims and Shi'ites to convert or die.

The United States has been building a military coalition to fight the group, which requires intervening in both Iraq and Syria, countries with complex multi-sided civil wars in which nearly every state in the region has allies and enemies.

International attention has focused on Turkey, a NATO member with the biggest army in the region, which has absorbed 1.2 million Syrian refugees, including 200,000 from Kobani in the last few weeks. Erdogan has so far refused to join the military coalition against Islamic State or use force to protect Kobani.

"We would like to appeal to the Turkish authorities ... to allow the flow of volunteers, at least, and their own equipment in order to be able to enter the city and contribute to a self-defence action," the U.N. envoy de Mistura said in Geneva.

"FIGHT TO LAST BREATH"

The Kurdish uprising in Turkey provoked a furious response from the Turkish government, which accuses Kurdish political leaders of using the situation in Kobani to destroy public order in Turkey and wreck its own delicate peace process.

Turkish Kurds fought a decades-long insurgency in which 40,000 people were killed. A truce last year has been one of the main achievements of Erdogan's decade in power, but Abdullah Ocalan, jailed co-founder of the Kurdish militant PKK, has said the peace process is doomed if Turkey permits Kobani to fall.

In a televised speech on Friday, Erdogan accused Kurdish leaders of "making calls for violence in a rotten way".

"The peace process does not mean tolerating illegality," he said. “I have put my hand, my body and my life into this peace process ... and I will continue to fight until my last breath to restore the brotherhood of 77 million at any cost.”

The three days of riots in southern Turkey were the worst street violence in many years. The attempted assassination of a police chief in eastern Bingol province was the first incident of its kind since 2001.

The southeastern border province of Gaziantep saw some of the worst violence overnight, with four people killed and 20 wounded as armed clashes broke out between protesters calling for solidarity with Kobani and groups opposing them.

GUNS AND SWORDS

Footage showed crowds with guns, swords and sticks roaming streets of Gaziantep. Two local branches of the Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) there were torched, Dogan reported.

Selahattin Demirtas, co-chair of HDP, Turkey's main Kurdish party, has called for calm and for protests to remain peaceful.

Many of Turkey's Kurds say the refusal to defend Kobani is proof the government sees them as a bigger enemy than Islamic State. At the frontier, dozens of Kurdish men watched Kobani's fighting from a hill where farmers once tended pistachio trees.

“I believed in the peace process, because I didn’t want any more children to die. But the Kurds were fooled. The peace process was insincere. The government either wants to wipe out Kurds or to enslave them," said Ahmet Encu, 46, who came 500 km (300 miles) to watch Kobani, where four relatives are fighting.

His own 12-year-old son was killed in 2011 when Turkish F-16s killed 34 Kurdish civilians who were smuggling cigarettes and fuel across the Iraqi border.

“For two years, Erdogan has been cultivating Islamic State, at the same time he was saying he wants to make peace. All along he has sought to annihilate the PKK. Apo (Ocalan) made a mistake declaring a ceasefire," he said.

Turkey says it would join an international coalition to fight against Islamic State only if the alliance also confronts Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government. Erdogan wants a no-fly zone to prevent Assad's planes from flying over the area near its border and a protected buffer zone there for refugees.

Washington has said it is studying the idea but has made clear it is not an option for now. Imposing a no-fly zone or buffer zone would require the United States to take on the air force of Assad's government, which so far has not objected to U.S. flights over Syrian territory to strike Islamic State.

Blinken, the U.S. deputy national security adviser, said creating a buffer zone is "not on the front burner".

(The story corrects characterisations of U.N. estimates of people trapped in Kobani in paragraph 3.)
(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Jonny Hogg and Seda Sezer in Turkey and Oliver Holmes and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff)


http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/ ... XF20141010

[Anthea]

RT

ISIS now controls 40% of Kobani – top US official

Islamic State forces have made new gains in Kobani, now controlling about 40 percent of the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish border and might well capture it, Deputy US National Security Adviser Tony Blinken has said.

“I don't know what's going to happen because again in the absence of any ground force there, it is going to be difficult just through air power to prevent ISIL (IS) from potentially taking over the town," Blinken told reporters at a briefing in London on Friday.

This information is also confirmed by the the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"They have taken at least 40 percent (of the town)," the head of the monitoring group, Rami Abdulrahman, said by telephone as reported by Reuters.

Islamic State fighters were now in almost complete control of the "security quarter," which is home to the administrative buildings used by the local government, he said.

The IS militants have seized control over some of the eastern areas of the town and smaller areas in the south of Kobani, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.They have seized the Kurd headquarters also, a monitoring group said.

"They are trying to advance on the crossing from the east ... but the YPG [fighters] are resisting them," Ocalan Iso, the deputy head of the Kurdish forces defending Kobani, told Reuters.

Fighting is also going on between IS and Kurds near a building used by Kurdish internal security forces, according to Kurdish military official. He denied any major advance by IS, though.

Ocalan Iso, deputy head of the Kurdish forces, said Islamic State was still conducting air strikes in the town center with mortars.

"There are fierce clashes and they are bombing the center of Kobani from afar," he told Reuters by telephone.

Thousands of people "will most likely be massacred" if Kobani falls to Islamic State fighters, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Friday.

The UN envoy compared possible Kobani population fate with one of Bosnian town of Srebrenica, where 8,000 Muslims were killed by Serbs in 1995, while UN peacekeepers failed to protect them.

A total of 200,000 people have allegedly fled the region over the last three weeks, horrified by IS’s rapid advance. The radical Islamist forces used heavy artillery to attack residential areas.

On Friday, fighting between IS and Kurdish forces in Kobani could be heard across the border.

The US-led coalition has also intensified airstrikes over the last two days around Kobani in response to the IS offensive.

Kurdish officials have been urging Ankara to allow weapons and fighters to flow into Kobani through Turkey. However, Turkish officials aren’t keen to help the town's Kurdish defenders, as they have strong connections with the PKK, considered a terrorist group in Turkey, the US and Europe.

Turkish officials refuse to intervene unilaterally, as they are concerned they would become involved in Syria’s bloody war.

In Turkey, the situation in Kobani triggered violent clashes between rival groups in over a third of the country’s provinces, with 31 killed, according to Interior Minister Efkan Ala, Reuters reported.

Over a thousand people have also been detained.

Earlier this week, 25 people were killed after pro-Kobani rallies turned into bloodshed, local media reported.

The anger over Kobani revealed the decades-long conflict between supporters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Turkey, which is strongly against the PKK. Violent conflict between the two sides ended about a decade ago.

PKK has been waging a war against the Turkish government for 30 years, demanding more autonomy.

http://rt.com/news/194856-isis-kobani-syria-turkey/

[Anthea]

THINGS THAT REALLY ANNOY ME
My views are not the views of Roj Bash Kurdistan

For MONTHS now Kurds have been aware of the Islamic State's progress towards Kobani

They have not sneaked in under darkness

They have spent several months destroying countless small villages in the surrounding area

The information was in the Kurdish news - on all the social media sites - even posted on here

NOBODY DID ANYTHING

ANOTHER THING THAT ANNOYS ME

So many Kurds have lost everything

Yet with all the many thousands of people protesting

Why is nobody collecting for the people

The only genuine people I know who have been sending supplies to the Yazidi are a small charity based in London

[Anthea]

According to Reports We Have Received, Battle for Kobani Still Ongoing in City Center. ISIS Uses Car Bombs & Suicide bombers!

[Anthea]

At least 10 killed in ongoing unrest in Turkey

At least ten people have been killed in Turkey as the unrest in the country enters its fourth day. Overall around 30 people were killed in violent protests over the fate of the Kurdish town of Kobani assaulted by the Islamic State jihadists in Syria.

The latest deaths on Thursday evening happened in clashes between rival groups in the southeastern province of Gaziantep. Defying a curfew imposed by the army, at least 20 people were wounded when pro-Kurdish activists and their opponents attacked each other with pistols, rifles and axes, Dogan news agency reported.



Separately, in the eastern city of Bingol, two police officers and a guard were killed while a police chief was wounded when gunmen attacked them. The attack happened while law enforcement was investigating the scene of recent Kobani-related clashes.

The wounded officers were taken to Bingol State Hospital for treatment. Three of the attackers were later killed while three others were captured after they clashed with security forces shortly after they fled the crime scene.

In the south eastern province of Mardin, one protester was killed in scuffles with police, AFP reports.

Meanwhile, police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons against a students in Ankara, namely those protesting in support of Syrian Kurds in Kobani at the Middle Eastern Technical University (ODTÜ) campus and at Ankara University. At least 25 people have been detained, while one woman was reportedly injured after being hit by pressurized water in the face, Hurriyet Daily News reports. The violence has prompted the Rector’s Office of Ankara University to cancel all classes on Friday.

Earlier in the day, 28 people were detained following a row between a Muslim Youth group and students at Istanbul University.

Police also detained 50 anti-war activist women who staged a protest against IS and the government at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, AFP reports.

Meanwhile Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Thursday that he would not allow peace process between Ankara and the Kurdish rebels to be “sabotaged” and derailed, blaming clashes in the country on “dark forces” instigating unrest.

“It’s very obvious that this game is aimed at sabotaging the peaceful environment in the east and southeast as well as the peace process and our brotherhood,” Erdogan said referring to negotiations between the government and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Link to Article Video Photos:

http://rt.com/news/194700-turkey-kurds- ... ign=buffer

[Anthea]

French Jewish girl flies to Syria to join jihad fighters

Unnamed girl is among about 100 young women from France who have left for Syria in recent months, intelligence official says

Jewish girl is among some 100 girls and young women from France who have left to join jihad fighters in Syria in recent months, a French intelligence official said Friday.

The official, who was speaking to the Associated Press, provided no information about the girl’s identity and spoke anonymously because rules forbid him to discuss ongoing investigations.

The girl was mentioned in a lengthy AP report which highlighted the drastic increase in the numbers of young French women heading to Syria “to join jihad.”

A survey earlier this summer found that 16% of French respondents hold favorable views of the Islamic State.

The Friday report focused on two teenage girls who have made the journey to Syria in recent months, Sahra and Nora. Neither had ever set foot on an airplane before. Yet both journeys were planned with the precision of a seasoned traveler and expert in deception, from Sahra’s ticket for the March 11 Marseille-Istanbul flight to Nora’s secret Facebook account and overnight crash pad in Paris, the report noted.

Sahra and Nora are among some 100 girls and young women from France who have left to join jihad in Syria, up from just a handful 18 months ago, when the trip was not even on Europe’s security radar, French officials said. They come from all walks of life — first- and second-generation immigrants from Muslim countries, white French backgrounds, and even a Jewish girl, according to the security official.

These departures are less the whims of adolescents and more the highly organized conclusions of months of legwork by networks that specifically target young people in search of an identity, according to families, lawyers and security officials. These mostly online networks recruit girls to serve as wives, babysitters and housekeepers for jihadis, with the aim of planting multi-generational roots for an Islamic caliphate.

Girls are also coming from elsewhere in Europe, including between 20 and 50 from Britain. However, the recruitment networks are particularly developed in France, which has long had a troubled relationship with its Muslim community, the largest in Europe. Distraught families plead that their girls are kidnap victims, but a proposed French law would treat them as terrorists liable to arrest upon return.

Sahra’s family has talked to her three times since she left, but her mother, Severine, thinks her communication is scripted by jihadis, possibly from the Islamic State group.

“They are being held against their will,” said Severine, a French woman of European descent. “They are over there. They’re forced to say things.”

The Ali Mehenni family lives in a red-tiled, middle-class home in Lezignan-Corbieres, a small town in the south of France. Sahra, who turns 18 on Saturday, swooned over her baby brother and shared a room with her younger sister. But family relations turned testy when she demanded to wear the full Islamic veil, dropped out of school for six months and closed herself in her room with a computer.

Now she was in a new school. And she seemed to be maturing — she asked her mother to help her get a passport, because she wanted her paperwork as an adult in order.

On the morning of March 11, Sahra casually told her father she was taking extra clothing to school to teach her friends to wear the veil. Kamel stifled his anxiety and drove her to the train station. He planned to meet her there just before dinner, as he did every night.

At lunchtime, she called her mother. I’m eating with friends, she said.

Surveillance video showed at that moment, Sahra was at the airport in Marseille, preparing to board an Istanbul-bound flight. She made one more phone call that day, from the plane, to a Turkish number, her mother said.

By nightfall, she had not returned. Her worried parents went to police.

They noticed the missing passport the next day.

“Everything was calculated. They did everything so that she could plan to the smallest detail,” Severine said. “I never heard her talk about Syria, jihad. It was as though the sky fell on us.”

Sahra told her brother in a brief call from Syria that she had married to a 25-year-old Tunisian she had just met, and her Algerian-born father had no say because he wasn’t a real Muslim.

Her family has spoken to her twice since then, always guardedly, and communicated a bit on Facebook. But her parents no longer know if she’s the one posting the messages.

Sahra told her brother she’s doing the same things in Syria that she did at home — housework, taking care of children. She says she doesn’t plan to return to France, and wants her mother to accept her religion, her choice, her new husband.

Nora’s family knows less about her quiet path out of France, but considerably more about the network that arranged her one-way trip to Syria.

Nora grew up the third of six children in the El-Bahty family, the daughter of Moroccan immigrants in the tourist city of Avignon. Her parents are practicing Muslims, but the family does not consider itself strictly religous.

She was recruited on Facebook. Her family does not know exactly how, but propaganda videos making the rounds play to the ideals and fantasies of teenage girls, showing veiled women firing machine guns and Syrian children killed in warfare. The French-language videos also refer repeatedly to France’s decision to restrict use of veils and headscarves, a sore point among many Muslims.

Nora was 15 when she departed for school on Jan. 23 and never came back.

The next day, Foad, her older brother, learned that she had been veiling herself on her way to school, that she had a second phone number, that she had a second Facebook account targeted by recruiters.

“As soon as I saw this second Facebook account I said, ‘She’s gone to Syria,'” Foad said.

The family found out through the judicial investigation about the blur of travel that took her there. First she rode on a high-speed train to Paris. Then she flew to Istanbul and a Turkish border town on a ticket booked by a French travel agency, no questions asked.

A young mother paid for everything, gave her a place to stay overnight in Paris and promised to travel with her the next day, according to police documents. She never did.

Nora’s destination was ultimately a “foreigners’ brigade” for the Nusra Front, an al-Qaida branch in Syria, Foad said. The idea apparently was to marry her off. But she objected and one of the emirs intervened on her behalf. For now at least, she remains single, babysitting children of jihadis. She has said she wants to come home — and Foad traveled to Syria but was not allowed to leave with her.

“As soon as they manage to snare a girl, they do everything they can to keep her,” Foad said. “Girls aren’t there for combat, just for marriage and children. A reproduction machine.”

Two people have been charged in Nora’s case, including the young mother. Other jihadi networks targeting girls have since been broken up, including one where investigators found a 13-year-old girl being prepared to go to Syria, according to a French security official.

“It is not at random that these girls are leaving. They are being guided. She was being commanded by remote control,” said family lawyer Guy Guenoun “And now she has made a trip to the pit of hell.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/french-jew ... um=twitter

[Piling]

The co-chair of PYD party, Asia Abdullah, seems to stay in the city of Kobanî. More courage than Salih Muslim.

[Anthea]

Sky News

Airstrikes Missing IS Front Line, Say Fighters

Syrian fighters say they're outnumbered as they battle IS near the Turkish border - and warn airstrikes are missing the target.
By Sherine Tadros, Middle East Correspondent

We met Abu Ibrahim, a Free Syrian Army (FSA) Commander, and his two friends in a coffee shop in Urfa, Southern Turkey.

They had just returned from the Syrian border town of Kobane, where he told us the FSA had joined forces with Kurdish militias to fight the group calling themselves Islamic State (IS).

It was an uneasy alliance with the Kurds, Abu Ibrahim told us, but they had little choice - they had to unite against their common enemy and help defend the town.

Abu Ibrahim says he left Kobane to help carry injured fighters to hospitals in Turkey.

He and his two friends - an activist and a fighter - say they plan to smuggle back in to Kobane imminently.

They are all originally from Eastern Syria but were forced out of their towns by IS militants.

They made it to Kobane a few weeks ago but admit they are now running out of ammunition.

"Turkey needs to open the border for us to get ammunition, because now we are trapped between Turkey and IS.

"I was smuggled into Turkey illegally and I will go back the same way."

He continued: "If things stay the same way, frankly we’ll have no other option but to fight with knives.

"There’s no way to bring in weapons ... we would rather die than leave our land."

Abu Ibrahim also says IS has around 5,000 fighters in Kobane right now and admits his forces and the Kurds are less than half of that.

Abu El Majed has been fighting in Kobane against IS for months and says they are not only outnumbered but also outgunned.

"We have RPGs, machine guns, light weapons like Kalishnikovs ... and that’s what we’re using against IS who have tanks, canons, heavy weapons," he explained.

For the past few days, US- led airstrikes have focused on hitting the outskirts of Kobane, but the fighters say the strikes are having almost no effect because they’re not targeting the IS front line.

Abu Jarrah is an FSA activist who says he watched the coalition strikes from a hilltop.

"I could see IS positions clearly, they had their flags raised, they weren’t hiding.

"But the jets would hit a kilometre or two away from the target," he told us, throwing his hands up in disbelief

For these men and thousands like them from the FSA, Kobane is the last hope.

They've been driven out of towns from Eastern Syria all the way to the Turkish border.

If they lose this battle with IS, they’ll have nowhere else to go.

"I’m prepared to fight until the last drop of my blood. I know if I am killed in Kobane, that’s it. I can’t live in Turkey. So we will fight with everything we have," said Abu Majed.

But that may not be enough.

US and Arab air power in Syria is not stopping the advance of the militants, while those fighting IS on the ground are being defeated and slowly driven out of their own country.

northerniraq.info/forums/posting.php?mode=reply&f=28&t=15533

[Anthea]

The co-chair of PYD party, Asia Abdullah, seems to stay in the city of Kobanî. More courage than Salih Muslim.

Asia Abdullah is extremely brave because we all know what the Islamic State does to women

Look at the size of her compared to fat old useless Salih Muslim - the only way he could kill the enemy would be to sit on them

[Anthea]

Found on Twitter:

TURKEY = ISIS. RT @_Median_: Meanwhile in Turkey: #ISIS spiritual leader was released from prison today. Via @SOL_SES

He is probably Erdogan's spiritual leader also