Fighting For Kobani

ISIS is losing ground in the battle for the Syrian border city of Kobane, suffering heavy losses from Kurdish fighters and U.S. airstrikes. But the front lines in the town itself are little changed, its eastern part still controlled by the insurgents, and the west still largely held by the main Syrian Kurdish armed group, the YPG, and allied fighters. They were given a heroes' welcome by Turkish Kurds and Syrian Kurdish refugees, angry at Turkey's refusal to send in its own troops and optimistic, as they lined the streets cloaked in Kurdish flags, that the peshmerga would turn the tide. A few days ago, in the bus back to Urfa from Suruç, a man started talking to me. Introducing himself as Müslüm, a 31-year old Kurdish activist from around Suruç, he told me about his brother, who is currently fighting with the YPG in Kobanê. Müslüm hasn't spoken to him for over five months, as any contact with Turkish volunteers fighting with the YPG in Rojava would put him and other family members back home at risk of arrest by Turkish authorities. Today in many places around the world, Kobane Day was celebrated in demos in solidarity with the beleaguered Kurdish border town. Perhaps the professional activism of the Kurds has even been able to convince a number of Leftists that the appeasement of Islam is leading to our doom.  The combined forces of the Nihilism of Islam and the Nihilism of Postmodernism are the cause of the ultimate Islam: the Islamic State, which is now worse than the plague in the Middle and Near East and a threat to every civilized human being on the planet. About 150 people from the original group of 270 refugees have said that they do not wish to return to Kobane. Many of the people are carrying out a hunger strike. All are now expected to be deported. The Syrian government has understandably voiced opposition to this plan. It would serve the interests of the Turkish and Syrian governments if revolutionary Rojava were forced into a conflict between them while also fighting ISIS. Then we stumbled across Ifthekar Jaman by chance: a British fighter tweeting about his experiences in Syria. It was a revelatory moment. In the following days, we realised that there were scores of Europeans in Syria, among them a Dane called Abu Fulan and a former Dutch soldier called Yilmaz. We began to focus on these fighters and wanted to interview them about their reasons for going, their world-view and experiences. We sent them a flurry of messages with uneven success. Most were suspicious of our intentions but we managed to establish a dialogue with several of them. Jaman was part of an initial wave of jihadis who made the journey to Syria with no support, taking huge risks to connect with the fighters there. I went alone,” he told me when we spoke over Skype. I didn't want anyone to come with me because I didn't kobane news know where I'd be sleeping or what I'd be doing. I just thought I'd place my trust in Allah.” Once in Syria, he was among those who helped to establish a more formal and less perilous route for the hundreds of others who later followed from Britain. Cantlie's sister, Jessica Cantlie, has previously appealed for "direct contact" with the militants holding him. Since August, IS has filmed and posted online the deaths of four Western hostages. kobane news UK aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines and American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were beheaded on camera by the jihadi organisation, which is also known as Isis or Isil.

Suddenly the man on the crest starts running. A second later, the summit explodes, as two more blasts hit the far side of the hill at the same time. That first blast sends the body of the man near the crest flying in classic ass-over-teakettle kobane news manner through the air, along with enough freshly-turned dirt to start a garden shop in the Namib. One of the men standing on the front slope starts running downhill, a sure sign that he's seen too many action movies. The US has admitted its co-ordination with the YPG. "We have for some time had conversations through intermediaries with the PYD (Kurdish Democratic Union Party). We engaged over last weekend with the PYD," said the State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki at the daily briefing. With the limited number of fighters, the meat-grinder” of the Kobani street does not play to IS's strengths, he added.