Kobane fighters say tide is turning

Submitted by AWL on 11 November, 2014 - 6:23 Author: Simon Nelson

The situation in Kobane has been boosted by the arrival of Iraqi-Kurdish peshmerga fighters, whose commander Ahmaf Gardi has stated that: "We will not leave until the city is wiped clean of ISIS".

A representative of YPG, the military wing of the PYD, is quoted as saying that the "existence of peshmerga in Kobane changed the balance of power. We are advancing towards ISIS positions, and now the majority of the city is under our control". 

Figures released by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimate that over 1,000 people have now been killed during the siege of Kobane. The majority of those killed have been Islamic State (ISIS) fighters, and the total does not include those killed in the US-led airstrikes.

The Iraqi Kurdish Rudaw website reports that the Turkish state has killed a pro-Kobane activist when she and 12 others rushed the border during a brief stand-off between Syrian Kurds and Turkish troops.

They were on a demonstration, not just to show support for the PYD (Democratic Union Party) and PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), the two largest forces now engaged in fighting ISIS, but to monitor Turkish state complicity with ISIS, who are believed to have up to 4000 fighters surrounding Kobane.

In Iraq the US has announced the next stage in their proposed fight against ISIS. 1600 US military advisors are currently in Iraq and will be joined by 1500 more US troops to assist and "rebuild" the Iraqi Army.

There has been a wave of car bombs in Baghdad targeting Shias, and distrust of the security forces amongst the Sunni minority and sectarian tension are steadily rising.

US President Obama has tried to reassure public opinion that he does not intend to commit combat troops to fighting IS directly. Speaking to CBS he said: "Our troops are not engaged in combat… we are taking four training centres… that allow us to bring in Iraqi troops, some of the Sunni tribes…. giving them proper training, proper equipment, helping them with strategy, helping them with logistics".

But the US troop surge in 2007 which managed to evoke and sustain Sunni militias fighting against ISIS's predecessor Al-Qaeda in Iraq was soon replaced with US support for the Shia-sectarian government of Maliki which helped to disenfranchise and exclude those Sunni fighters from the new Iraqi state.

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