Islamic Extremists Pledge To Press Ahead With Battle For Kobani

Iraqi Kurdish fighters hope to aid their fellow Kurds in preventing the "Islamic State" from capturing Kobani. kobane news But an Iraqi politician says the fighters' involvement in the besieged border city is on a short-term basis. In a video conference, Mr Obama and the leaders of the UK, France, Germany and Italy agreed to step up support for an inclusive political approach” in Iraq and training for local forces in Iraq and Syria, a statement by UK Prime Minister David Cameron's office said. Maybe in the few past days Islamic State was controlling about 40% of the city of Kobane, but now… less than 20% of the city is under control of IS…,” he said. 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. IS cannot establish a land connection between Jarablus and Tel Abyad, which it controls, by using the 85-kilometer (53-mile) road parallel to the Turkish border that links those two towns. They now have to travel 250 kilometers (160 miles) for the same trip. Erdogan said he had made the proposal to bring the peshmerga to Kobane himself in telephone talks with US President Barack Obama. On 19 October, YPG fighters advanced in the Kani Erban area where they took over two ISIL positions, while ISIL managed to advance in the west of the security quarter. The US-led coalition launched six airstrikes on ISIL positions between 18-19 October. 146 Later, 3 US transport aircrafts dropped 27 bundles totalling 24 tons of small arms and ammunition as well as 10 tons of medical kobane news supplies that were supplied by Iraqi Kurdistan to Kurdish fighters defending Kobanê. 147 148 In a statement released by the U.S. Central Command, 149 it was stated that the airdrops were "...intended to enable continued resistance against ISIL's attempts to overtake Kobanê." According to reports, one of the bundles landed in an ISIL held area and was subsequently bombed. I'm not pretending that YPG and IS are morally equal. They're not. YPG is a secular, gender-neutral local militia defending its home town against fucking monsters, and IS is the monster in question, one of the vilest groups around. But the life-story, the motives, the experiences, of Jordan Matson and the average Tunisian recruit aren't that different. Jihad, on either side, beats graveyard shift in Wisconsin or unemployment in Tunis. Since October 17, the earliest date the video could have been made, fighting has continued in Kobani, which Kurdish fighters backed by US and Arab air strikes are defending against the jihadists. Turkey, which has been at war with the PKK over Kurdish rights for 30 years, has been hesitant to provide direct support to the group's partners in Kobani. Other countries have followed Turkey's lead. In an alarming UN report this week presented to the Security Council, officials claimed that as many as 15,000 recruits from 80 countries have now been attracted to Syria and Iraq to fight with the Islamic State, Al Qaeda and other Jihadist groups since 2010. In a rare humane move, the Islamic State did however release 25 Kurdish children on Wednesday whom it had held hostage since May, after they were abducted from their school in Kobane. We at Lambdaistanbul are concerned for all peoples who have experienced or risk experiencing the massacres of ISIS, especially the people of Kobane. We recognise that not only is it those such as the gay individual who was murdered yesterday in Izmir, but also the Kurds who are forced to face cruelty, that are the oppressed of the world. We do not shy away from stating again and again that social peace will provide everyone with a habitable world. We were concerned when the threat of massacre faced by the Kurds in Kobane today was realised in Sinjar yesterday. Self-defeating policies seem to be the norm these days in both Ankara and Washington. The fall will imperil a larger area than just Kobane - Turkey, and therefore NATO, will have yet another area controlled by ISIL on its border, and ISIL's stature will continue to grow among jihadist groups. Not to mention that if Kobane isn't a strategic objective for the United States, as we have been told by officials , then by extension neither is a Kurdish peace process in Turkey since it could end with the fall of Kobane.