By KARAM SHOUMALI and ANNE BARNARD OCT. 8, 2014
An explosion rose from the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani on Wednesday, as fighters from the Islamic State militant group appeared to hold their ground there despite intensive American-led airstrikes. Credit Sedat Suna/European Pressphoto Agency
MURSITPINAR, Turkey — Gun battles and explosions echoed from the embattled Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani on Wednesday, as Islamic State militants detonated a car bomb and new American-led airstrikes hit the northern edge of the town, close to the Turkish border.
A Kurdish official in Kobani, Assi Abdullah, said that despite the bombing, Islamic State fighters had managed to enter new areas of the town and move north, closer to the border.
That development, along with what could be seen of the fighting from across the border, suggested that two days of intensive airstrikes had failed to turn back the militants. Kurdish fighters, as well as Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have said that airstrikes alone will not stop the attackers.
But they are divided on how to address the problem. Kurds insist that Turkey should allow Kurdish fighters, supplies and weapons to enter the encircled town through its territory. Turkey refuses to do so unless the Kurds meet certain demands, including distancing themselves from their allies in an outlawed Kurdish separatist party in Turkey.
Turkey has also balked at deeper involvement with the American-led coalition against the Islamic State, urging President Obama to focus on ousting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and calling for an international no-fly zone and buffer area along the Syrian border, not necessarily in Kobani.
Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that preventing the town’s fall to Islamic State militants was not a strategic objective for the United States.
“As horrific as it is to watch in real time what is happening in Kobani,” Mr. Kerry said at a news conference with the British foreign secretary in Washington, “you have to step back and understand the strategic objective.” He added that the focus had been on the militants’ “command and control centers, the infrastructure.”
Ms. Abdullah, the Kurdish official in Kobani, said by telephone that 15 civilians had been killed since militants entered the town. “We still have thousands of civilians inside Kobani who might be massacred if ISIS takes the city,” she said, using a former acronym for the Islamic State.
As an indication of the complex political currents, however, she made it clear the Kurds would not welcome military assistance from Turkey, asking instead for free passage of Kurdish fighters from Turkey to reinforce those in Kobani.
“We would view Turkey sending its troops without an international decision as an occupation," she said. "Turkey can help in a different way by allowing support to come through its territory. All the talk by Turkey about helping us is still words and not actions.”
Anwar Muslim, a lawyer and the head of the Kobani district, echoed those sentiments, saying it was illogical to ask the Kurds to denounce Mr. Assad and join Syrian insurgent groups fighting against him.
“We don’t deal with the Syrian regime, and our borders with Turkey have always been quiet,” he said in a telephone interview. “We wish that Turkey would allow fighters from Qamishli to come through its territory,” he added, referring to a Syrian Kurdish area now cut off from Kobani, “and wish it had been earnest about standing by the Kurds against ISIS.”
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
It was difficult to gauge the direction of the battle in Kobani on Wednesday. For the first time in days, there was no shelling of the town. Kurdish fighters and officials reached inside Kobani early Wednesday said that Tuesday’s airstrikes, the most intense so far, had kept the militants from advancing beyond their foothold southwest of the town.
By Wednesday afternoon, though, as plumes of smoke rose above the town, the same people sounded more anxious on the phone. One large explosion, initially thought to be an airstrike, was claimed by Islamic State militants as a suicide car bombing. Ms. Abdullah, the Kurdish official, said the bomb hit a police station where Kurdish fighters were stationed. It was unclear if there were casualties.
Coalition airstrikes continued into the late afternoon, sending towering columns of dust into the air and black smoke across the border.
More than 186,000 Syrians have fled to Turkey over the last three weeks, as Islamic State militants have pressed their offensive in and around Kobani. More than 200 Syrians who crossed the border in recent days have been detained by the Turkish authorities, who have questioned them about their ties to the Kurdish militants defending the town, known as the People’s Protection Committees, or Y.P.G.
On Wednesday, the Turkish government was forced to contend with an outburst of protests in several Turkish cities with large Kurdish populations. Turkey’s military imposed a curfew in parts of the southeast after at least 18 people were killed in demonstrations over the government’s failure to aid Kobani. It was the first time such a curfew had been imposed since a bloody Kurdish insurgency was tamped down in the 1990s.
The violence was the worst in years related to Turkey’s restive Kurdish minority, jeopardizing a fragile peace process. Protests also took place in Istanbul, Ankara and elsewhere. The worst rioting was in Diyarbakir, in southeastern Turkey, where at least 10 people died. Some of the deaths came in clashes between Kurdish activists and members of a Kurdish Islamist group sympathetic to the Islamic State.
Karam Shoumali reported from Mursitpinar, Turkey, and Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon.
========================
Isis Syria News: Islamic State Withdraws from Kobani Districts After Heavy Air Strikes
Gianluca Mezzofiore By Gianluca Mezzofiore
October 8, 2014 11:08 BST
Smoke rises from the Syrian town of Kobani after a war plane carried out an air strike, seen from near the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province Umit Bektas/Reuters
Air strikes conducted by a US-led coalition have begun to push Isis fighters back from some parts of the Syrian Kurdish-majority border town of Kobani after three weeks of advances.
Since the Islamic State (also known as Isis) raised their black flag on the eastern side of the town, raids on the Sunni Islamists have multiplied. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, militants "withdrew overnight from several areas in the east of Kobani".
The news was confirmed by Idris Nassan, deputy foreign minister of Kobani district, who told Reuters that Isis fighters are "outside the entrances of the city".
"The shelling and bombardment was very effective and as a result of it, IS have been pushed from many positions," he said. The move came after Isis back positions were hit in strikes, causing casualties and damages to their vehicles.
"This is their biggest retreat since their entry into the city and we can consider this as the beginning of the countdown of their retreat from the area," Nassan said.
The Kurdish forces are desperately outnumbered and outgunned by Isis, which boasts an arsenal of US weapons looted from the Iraqi army in Mosul. Defence experts said it was unlikely that the advance could be halted by air power alone.
Mustafa Ebdi, a Kurdish journalist and activist from the besieged town, said on Facebook that the streets of Maqtala neighbourhood in southeastern Kobani were full of the bodies of Isis fighters.
The possible breakthrough in the battle for Kobani came after Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that a ground operation is necessary to defeat Isis and expressed his concerns that the town was about to fall into the hands of jihadists.
No comments:
Post a Comment