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Has Kobane become vortex of death for ISIS?


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raining-fire-isis-amazing-picture-captures-moment-u-s-bomb-lands-heart-kobani-kurdish-leader-warns-airstrikes-not-defeat-jihadists.htmlDaily Mail:

John Hall for MailOnline and Jenny Awford for MailOnline

18 October 2014

 

Islamic State militants have made fatal strategic mistakes in Kobane, allowing American and Arab warplanes to obliterate them from the air and Kurdish forces to suck them into unfamiliar 'meat grinder' street battles, an expert has claimed.

 

During the four-week battle for Kobane, ISIS has used the same tried and tested 'pincer movement' it deployed during the rapid seizure of vast swathes of northern Syria and western Iraq earlier this year.

 

In the majority of those lightning advances, ISIS was able to capture towns and cities with little to no resistance - as the group's reputation for torture and brutal murder ensured local security forces either defected or abandoned their posts, rather than face certain slaughter at the hands of the fanatics.

 

But as Kobane is located less than 200 yards south of the Turkish border fences and is surrounded largely by desert, the massively outgunned Kurdish fighters there have had nowhere to flee, encouraging them to gather in the centre of town and defend the city in furious street-to-street battles.

 

This is a tactic that does not play to ISIS' considerable armament strengths and leaves the militants out in the open for lengthy periods, where American and Arab warplanes can easily pick the fighters off.

 

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I'm really thankful that they were able to keep Kobane. In spite of Turkey & Obumbler. They have fought against ISIS with everything they have....and God bless them.

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@SrWoodchuck An interesting article

 

The Meaning of Kobani

Whether Kobani falls or stands, it has become a defining moment of nationhood and identity for Syrian and Turkish Kurds.

Henri J. Barkey

Oct. 18 2014

 

The Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani has been under a relentless siege by the Islamic State (IS) for the past few weeks. Surprisingly its defenders have endured, defying the long odds. Whether it falls or survives, Kobani is likely to become for Syrian and Turkish Kurds what Halabja became for Iraqi Kurds in 1988: a defining moment of nationhood and identity.

 

Halabja helped propel and shape the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq, now called the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). In 1988, in the midst of the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds, Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons on the sleepy Iraqi Kurdish town near the Iranian border, killing some 5,000, mostly civilians. Unnoticed at the time, Halabja became for much of the world a symbol of the larger campaign of mass extermination against the Kurds, as well as a quintessential example of a crime against humanity.

 

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There is another, rather unique aspect of the resistance that is adding to its mythic character: the role of women in the fight. The juxtaposition of an Islamic State, which enslaves women or covers them from head to toe, with the Syrian Kurds’ Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has large numbers of women fighting and dying alongside men, is particularly striking. Social and other media outlets have brimmed with stories of the heroism and sacrifice of these women. The fighting in Kobani, and especially the emergence of women fighters, has now entered the Kurdish lore and imagination.

 

Resistance in Kobani has also mobilized Kurds across the world, but especially in Turkey—notwithstanding the government’s earlier courageous attempt to initiate a peace process with its own Kurdish insurgent movement, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Turkish government faces a dilemma, however: a victory for the PYD, which is an ally, if not the creation, of the PKK, will not only strengthen the PKK’s bargaining position but will also potentially enable the Kurds to construct another Kurdish autonomous region on its borders after the KRG. That, in Ankara’s view, would be a strategic disaster, because it would naturally embolden Turkish Kurds to demand the same. In Turkey alone, some 36 people have already died in Kobani-related demonstrations.

 

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Fall or survive, Kobani has assumed an importance few could have anticipated, becoming the rallying cry for Syrian and Turkish Kurds as much as Halabja was for their Iraqi brethren. Moreover, Kobani’s plight has once again drawn the whole international community’s attention to the region’s Kurdish question.

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Islamic State: Turkey to let Iraq Kurds join Kobane fight
20 October 2014

Turkey will allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters to cross the Syrian border to fight Islamic State (IS) militants in Kobane, its foreign minister says.
Mevlut Cavusoglu added that talks on the subject were continuing, but gave no further details.

Tens of thousands of people have fled months of fighting in Kobane between IS forces and Syrian Kurd defenders.
Until now Turkey has refused to allow Kurdish fighters to cross into Syria, fearful of a reaction among its Kurds.

The government in Ankara fought a decades-long conflict with the PKK, which it brands as a terrorist organisation. The PKK campaigns for greater autonomy in Turkey and has links with the Syrian Kurds defending Kobane.
But Turkey has come under pressure from its own Kurdish population, and more widely, to allow fighters in to help push IS out of Kobane, a town that has become highly symbolic of the wider battle against IS.

 

 

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Vile image of baby girl being 'beheaded' found by Kurds on phone taken from dead ISIS fanatics in Kobane

18 October 2014

 

An horrific image has emerged of a baby girl moments from being beheaded by IS.

 

The picture is among several recovered by Kurdish soldiers from the mobile phones of dead fanatics in the Syrian town of Kobane.

It shows the child being pinned to the floor, in clear distress as a knife is held to her throat.

 

It is feared she may have been beheaded along with her family for being an Alevi Muslim, a branch of Islam whose followers have been targeted by IS.

 

Other pictures show beheadings and jihadis playing football with the severed heads of victims.

They were found by Kurdish YPG fighters defending the besieged town, where more than 1,100 are thought to have been killed since last month.

 

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Note The photos are out there, you can find them...I did....Gag a Maggot comes to mind.

 

I wonder what our "friends" in the paleo-con/libertarian/anti-war community say about this?

 

 

H/T Weasel Zippers

 

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Turkey Says It Will Aid Kurdish Forces in Fight for Kobani
KAREEM FAHIM and KARAM SHOUMALI
OCT. 20, 2014

MURSITPINAR, Turkey — Turkey will allow Iraqi Kurdish forces, known as pesh merga, to cross its border with Syria to help fight militants from the group called the Islamic State who have besieged the Syrian town of Kobani for more than a month, the Turkish foreign minister announced Monday.

 

The decision represents an important shift by the Turkish government, which has angered Kurdish leaders and frustrated Washington for weeks by refusing to allow fighters or weapons to cross its border in support of the Kurdish fighters defending the town. Speaking at a news conference in Ankara, the Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said that his government was “helping the pesh merga cross over to Kobani.”

 

The announcement, along with an American decision to use military aircraft to drop ammunition and small arms to resupply Kobani, reflected escalating international pressure to push back Islamic State militants. As the United States-led coalition has increased its airstrikes as well as its coordination with the Kurdish fighters, who have provided targeting information, the militants have lost momentum after appearing close to overrunning the town..

 

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Whither the Kurds?

Posted on October 22, 2014 by The Political Hat

The Islamic State (AKA “ISIL” or “ISIS”), have well established that they are monsters who have no qualms about slaughtering innocents left and right. Much as the Islamic State have become the modern day Khmer Rouge, Barack Obama has been the modern day version of Jimmy Carter, in that neither one seems to care about the slaughter much.

 

Perhaps more freighting of a parallel are the actions of Turkey. Not only have they allowed the Islamic State to open up its first consulate in Istanbul, but are actually helping fight against the Kurds!Scissors-32x32.pnghttp://politicalhat.com/2014/10/22/whither-the-kurds/

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Meet ISIS’s Worst Nightmare: An All-Women Battalion Of Kurdish Fighters

BY KEVIN BOYD (2 MONTHS AGO) | WORLD

As ISIS has swept across northern Iraq, they have become known for their atrocities towards women. For example, Yazidi women have been abducted by ISIS to become sex slaves for their fighters. However, here’s a group of women that aren’t preparing to flee ISIS but instead are preparing to meet them with their AK-47s.

 

Meet the 2nd Peshmerga Battalion, who are a battalion of Kurdish fighters – and they just happen to be an all-female battalion as well. They’re front line soldiers, some of whom have been fighting for years, and they’re eager to face ISIS. Scissors-32x32.png

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/08/167994-meet-isiss-worst-nightmare-women-battalion-kurdish-fighters/

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The United States Air Force Sends greeting to the fighters of Jihad

 

 

 

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“The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event. That said, there are some assholes in the world that just need to be shot.”

Gen. James Mattis (Ret.)

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Exclusive Interview With a Captured ISIS Fighter

We interviewed an ISIS fighter being held by the Free Syrian Army about the manipulation of recruits and how ISIS betrayed him
Lindsey Snell
10/23/14

 

 

We sat around the living room of Sheikh Husam Atrash, commander of the Jaish al-Mujahideen brigade of the Free Syrian Army, interviewing him by the light of some LEDs powered by a car battery. The power was off in the Western countryside of Aleppo, Syria, as has usually been the case since the civil war began.

 

“Do you have any ISIS prisoners right now?” I asked.

 

The sheikh nodded.

 

“Can I interview one?”

 

The sheikh nodded again. “Yes. I give my hearty consent. We have nothing to hide.”

 

The next morning, we were ushered into one of the brigades bases—a grand vacation mansion abandoned by it’s wealthy inhabitants at the start of the war. An FSA fighter sporting a mullet and an AK-47 led in the prisoner—a young man who looked more like a Brooklyn hipster than a murderous jihadi. He was sheepish, fidgeting as he waited for us to set up.

 

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