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The Islamic state

Leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan’s two main political factions declared on Sunday that they have dispatched weapons, equipment and humanitarian aid to help Syrian Kurds fend off an assault by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) on a Kurdish enclave in neighbouring Syria.

Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of Iraq’s self-ruled Kurdistan Regional Government, told a news conference in the city of Sulaymaniyah that only geography prevented the deployment of ground forces to help defend the besieged Syrian-Turkish border city of Kobani.

“Kobani is very important to us and we will spare no effort to save it,” Mr Barzani said at a joint news conference with Molla Bakhtiar, a leader of the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Unbowed by US-led air strikes, Isis fighters continued efforts to take Kobani, which has become a focal point for international efforts to defeat the group.

The US and UN have been pressuring Turkey to help Kurdish forces defend the city. Ankara has resisted because Kobani’s primary defenders belong to an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party, which Turks have been at war with for 30 years. However, Turkey has agreed to train Syrian rebels associated with the Free Syrian Army.

Fierce battles continued on Sunday between Isis militants and forces from the People’s Protection Units, known as YPG, and allied units of the western-backed FSA defending Kobani.

By early afternoon, plumes of smoke could be seen rising from parts of the city and the sounds of heavy gunfire could be heard in western districts, a witness said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, described continuing clashes and a surge of reinforcements as Isis attempted to seize control of the border crossing point into Turkey.

“It is a decisive battle [for Isis],” Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the observatory, said. “Should they win it, they will be able to stay long in Syria, and if they don’t they will lose face before their supporters.”

Isis and its allies killed scores of Iraqis in Shia districts of the capital and in the religiously and ethnically mixed districts around and to the north of Baghdad on Saturday and Sunday. Targets included a government compound in a Kurdish-controlled district of Diyala province. One bomb struck a busy ice cream shop in Baghdad, killing eight people.

On Sunday a roadside bomb killed Major General Ahmed Saddaq al-Tammimi, commander of interior ministry forces in Iraq’s troubled western province of Anbar. Continued setbacks in Anbar prompted the province’s council this weekend to formally put a request to the government in Baghdad to seek the deployment of US ground troops.

Also on Sunday UK officials confirmed to local media that British soldiers attached to the 2nd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment have joined US and German counterparts working near the front line in the battles against Isis as non-combat advisers and trainers in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Gen Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, revealed on Sunday that the US had to call in Apache helicopters last week to protect Baghdad’s airport against fighters from Isis.

“They were within 20 or 25 kilometers and had they overrun the Iraqi unit, it was a straight shot to the airport,” he told ABC. “We are not going to allow that to happen, we need that airport.”

He said that the Iraqis and US airpower had so far been “successful in keeping them [Isis] out of range” of Baghdad. However, he added: “I have no doubt there will be days when they use indirect fire into Baghdad.”
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www.ft.com/cms/s/0/51e16cc0-521c-11e4-b55e-00144feab7de.html

How they will get the weapons there?
 
The Turks have finally come around a little. This should be a big help since the distance American planes have had to fly are extremely long & required mid air refueling. I was wondering how long it would take to get the use of Incrilik.
Turkey has agreed to let the US use its military bases in the campaign against Islamic State militants, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice says.

Ms Rice said the US welcomed the new agreement, which included use of the Incirlik air base in Turkey's south.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29591916
 
Casually Red said:
theyll have extracted a price for it first though . remains to be seen what it was
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I think the price was 'We won't go in on the ground, even to save Kobane'. This was ISIS price for releasing the Turkish diplomats. But air bases are a different matter. That way they give something to both sides.
 
TomUS said:
I think the price was 'We won't go in on the ground, even to save Kobane'. This was ISIS price for releasing the Turkish diplomats. But air bases are a different matter. That way they give something to both sides.
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Who ceded that - Turkey? They were already in a position to do/not do that as they see fit.The US - they already couldn't do that. There's no bargaining in that.
 
I've been trying to make sense of the unstable map of Rojava specifically, & Syria beyond, and end up with more questions than answers (because it's complicated & my knowledge of the region is superficial). How did Kobane end up in such a desperately isolated situation? Was the creation of Rojava premature or over-ambitious, always too wide & too fragile to control/defend, or did expediency necessitate an attempt at regional organisation as the Syrian state retreated? Did the ambition, speed, & military capability of the Daesh advance take the Rojavan Kurds by surprise? And is the western enclave (Efrin Canton, I think) similarly vulnerable to isolation after rapid advances?
 
Turkish police are on high security alert after a large amount of explosives were seized in the southeastern province of Gaziantep.

Police seized 150 kilograms of C4 explosives, 20 vests for suicide attacks, and a number of guns and bullets in the operation, daily Habertürk has reported.

The amount of explosives could destroy a middle-sized city, the report stated.

Gaziantep Police Department head Ali Gezer previously said people "would be terrified" if he announced the amount of weapons and ammunition seized by police in the recent operation.

Police are considering the possibility that the ammunition could belong to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), after initial suspicion had focused on the outlawedKurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

They are reportedly considering that the seized explosives could be part of ammunition that was allegedly deployed by ISIL in big cities, the report added.

Red alerts have been issued in many cities, including Istanbul and Ankara.
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http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/hu...ntep-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=72894&NewsCatID=509
 
Patteran said:
I've been trying to make sense of the unstable map of Rojava specifically, & Syria beyond, and end up with more questions than answers (because it's complicated & my knowledge of the region is superficial). How did Kobane end up in such a desperately isolated situation? Was the creation of Rojava premature or over-ambitious, always too wide & too fragile to control/defend, or did expediency necessitate an attempt at regional organisation as the Syrian state retreated? Did the ambition, speed, & military capability of the Daesh advance take the Rojavan Kurds by surprise? And is the western enclave (Efrin Canton, I think) similarly vulnerable to isolation after rapid advances?
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Syrian army gave ISIS jarabulus - bang in the middle of the area between kobane on the east and Afrin/(and the rebels in alleppo) in the west and right on the border in early 2012. The other canton is and Jazira (Al-Hasakah) in far east. Then, as their part of the deal ISIS turned on the rebel groups in the west - esp alleppo - whilst guarding kobane from jarabulus, whilst in the far-east they disengaged from the fighting syrian opposition and concentrated on building their 'state'. So a mix of things really. Disengagement from the revolution might be key.

edit:and as for why they had an eye on kobane all the time have a read of this.
 
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Casually Red said:
story seems a bt suss . Plainly that amount while significant is nowhere near big enough to destroy a city. So theres scaremongering from the cops. And unless the cops just tripped over it its most likely they were acting on either a tip off or surveillance . Whch would mean there was never any confusion as to regards who owned it .

more going on than meets the eye methinks
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Given the Turkish state rarely misses a chance to put the boot in afa the the Kurds are concerned,then they raising the possibility that it could be an IS cache has quite a bit of significance.
 
Just edited that post - the trucks story is about trucks from the barzani foundation going into Kobane not iraqi kurdistan. And now i've edited it this post makes no sense :facepalm:

Right, 7 aid trucks from barzani foundation allowed over the turkish border to kobane - only 4 were searched. That is different story from other barzani one. But that he/they are both putting this about today means something is afoot.
 
butchersapron said:
Syrian army gave ISIS jarabulus - bang in the middle of the area between kobane on the east and Afrin/(and the rebels in alleppo) in the west and right on the border in early 2012. The other canton is and Jazira (Al-Hasakah) in far east. Then, as their part of the deal ISIS turned on the rebel groups in the west - esp alleppo - whilst guarding kobane from jarabulus, whilst in the far-east they disengaged from the fighting syrian opposition and concentrated on building their 'state'. So a mix of things really. Disengagement from the revolution might be key.

edit:and as for why they had an eye on kobane all the time have a read of this.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for this. Assad is a canny fucker, a difficult enemy - it's brilliantly difficult for outsiders (whether interested punters or foreign militaries) to keep track of shifting alliances, deniable proxies, pseudo gangs, etc, never mind second-guessing ambitions and motivations. I guess the YPG's doughty resistance has been the other crucial factor - scuppering Daesh chances of the crucial 'quick victory' cited in that Joshua Landis piece. That led me to reports of the Al Abyad massacres. I might have read about it before, but the town name meant nothing, and the (filmed) atrocities were added to the list of videos I will never watch and hope my son's never tempted to see. Christ.

'Disengagement from the revolution might be the key'. I'm not sure I understand this - the key to current PYD problems?
 
Patteran said:
Thanks a lot for this. Assad is a canny fucker, a difficult enemy - it's brilliantly difficult for outsiders (whether interested punters or foreign militaries) to keep track of shifting alliances, deniable proxies, pseudo gangs, etc, never mind second-guessing ambitions and motivations. I guess the YPG's doughty resistance has been the other crucial factor - scuppering Daesh chances of the crucial 'quick victory' cited in that Joshua Landis piece. That led me to reports of the Al Abyad massacres. I might have read about it before, but the town name meant nothing, and the (filmed) atrocities were added to the list of videos I will never watch and hope my son's never tempted to see. Christ.

'Disengagement from the revolution might be the key'. I'm not sure I understand this - the key to current PYD problems?
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In the sense of concentrating resources on building their own autonomous areas instead of supporting FSA and secular groups in the fighting in other areas against assad and the islamists - in fact, actually clashing with them on occasion. This weakened both and allowed ISIS/assad to sneak into strategically key areas through the gaps that mutual distrust/distance between kurdish groups/rebel groups created. Instead of watching each others back they turned blind eyes - or at least decided their resources were better spent on themselves. Until it was too late.
 
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