Kobane: IS and Syria Kurds in fierce gun battles

[flamingdem]

Source: BBC

Kurdish fighters are engaged in fierce gun battles with Islamic State (IS) in the Syrian border town of Kobane, as US-led coalition air strikes continue.

A BBC correspondent near the fighting says dozens of weapons are firing, with regular grenade explosions.

In its latest report, the US Central Command said six air strikes had destroyed IS weaponry around Kobane.

The UN envoy for Syria has urged the international community to act now to prevent IS from seizing the key town.

Staffan de Mistura told the BBC that the fall of Kobane would be "a massacre and a humanitarian tragedy".

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29532291

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According to those at the scene or reporting on Kobane Isis has been slowed down by multiple airstrikes. UAE participated in the strikes.

Jenan Moussa ?@jenanmoussa 39m39 minutes ago

Acc. to Kurdish defence chief for #Kobane, city is not about to fall. "If coalition is serious & helps us more, we can win agnst ISIS"


cahit storm @cahitstorm · 2m 2 minutes ago

Fierce fight ongoing ln west #Kobane the plane is still there he just drop some pepper at me


Jenan Moussa ?@jenanmoussa 1h1 hour ago

Acc 2 @CENTCOM --> US did 4 airstrikes on #ISIS targets south #Kobane,1 SW of it & another at southern edge; UAE participated


Paul Adams ?@BBCPaulAdams 4h4 hours ago

Today shaping up much like yesterday. Multiple airstrikes. But I have almost never heard such intense street fighting. #Kobane


Paul Adams ?@BBCPaulAdams 5h5 hours ago

Multiple sources say 5 airstrikes on Kobane area this morning. Fires burning. 2nd day of significant US-led coalition attention.


Kurt Pelda ?@KurtPelda 6h6 hours ago

Almost constant airstrikes on #Kobane and vicinity have made it very difficult for #ISIS to move their tanks and heavy weapons.

[Baclava]

1. meanwhile, Turkey sits back and watches

[flamingdem]

2. The biggest complaint of the Kurd is that the Turks won't allow arms

or Kurd fighters and volunteers get past the border.

The Turks are lucky that the coalition is at least keeping Isis in check for now.

[Baclava]

3. ..and then there's this...'Turkey can save Kobane from ISIL—for a price'

As Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters surround the Syrian-Kurdish enclave of Kobane on three sides and civilians flee en masse toward the tightly sealed border with Turkey, Ankara sees an opportunity: Much-needed ground reinforcements to save Kobane will have to either come from or transit through Turkey, which may be able to leverage its long-awaited participation in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL for its own purposes.

Despite considerable misgivings about bailing out Kobane’s ruling PYD — the armed sister party of the Turkey-based Kurdish PKK insurgency, which Ankara and Washington both regard as a "terrorist" organization — the brutality that many fear would ensue if the town of 40,000 falls to ISIL has put Ankara under both humanitarian and political pressure to send in troops. U.S.-Arab airstrikes have not been enough to boost the struggling Kurdish ground forces, which have ordered an evacuation of Kobane and are desperately pleading for help.

Speaking Tuesday at one of Turkey’s several Syrian refugee camps in the southern city of Gaziantep, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told residents that Kobane was about to fall and seemed to name his terms for saving it.

Turkey, Erdogan said, wants a more robust coalition strategy in Syria that includes empowering the moderate rebels and imposing a no-fly zone over Syria and buffer zone on the ground to help protect Turkey’s borders and stem the flow of refugees.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/10/7/turkey-kobane-intervention.html

[flamingdem]

4. They can't implement the no fly zone because they can't disable Assads air defense

And the US has told Erdogan that they will not change their focus from Isis to Assad.

Turkey fail.

I think in lieu of those items they'll just ask for millions of dollars, as they are wont to do.

[Baclava]

5. they want US to impose a no-fly zone - in exchange for their boots stopping a slaughter in Kobane

that's what it sounds like...

pawns

chess pieces

something,something

[flamingdem]

6. The Kurds see that as a way to control their territory

and won't go along.

something something like that

[Baclava]

7. This isn't about the Kurds - it's Turkey - 'Turkish Inaction on ISIS Advance Dismays the U.S.'

WASHINGTON — As fighters with the Islamic State bore down Tuesday on the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish border, President Obama’s plan to fight the militant group without being drawn deeper into the Syrian civil war was coming under acute strain.

While Turkish troops watched the fighting in Kobani through a chicken-wire fence, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that the town was about to fall and Kurdish fighters warned of an impending blood bath if they were not reinforced — fears the United States shares.

But Mr. Erdogan said Tuesday that Turkey would not get more deeply involved in the conflict with the Islamic State unless the United States agreed to give greater support to rebels trying to unseat the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. That has deepened tensions with President Obama, who would like Turkey to take stronger action against the Islamic State and to leave the fight against Mr. Assad out of it.

Even as it stepped up airstrikes against the militants Tuesday, the Obama administration was frustrated by what it regards as Turkey’s excuses for not doing more militarily. Officials note, for example, that the American-led coalition, with its heavy rotation of flights and airstrikes, has effectively imposed a no-fly zone over northern Syria already, so Mr. Erdogan’s demand for such a zone rings hollow.

“There’s growing angst about Turkey dragging its feet to act to prevent a massacre less than a mile from its border,” a senior administration official said. “After all the fulminating about Syria’s humanitarian catastrophe, they’re inventing reasons not to act to avoid another catastrophe.

“This isn’t how a NATO ally acts while hell is unfolding a stone’s throw from their border,” said the official, who spoke anonymously to avoid publicly criticizing an ally.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/world/middleeast/isis-syria-coalition-strikes.html?_r=0







Mr. Erdogan has also resisted pleas to send his troops across the border in the absence of a no-fly zone to ward off the Syrian Air Force.

[flamingdem]

8. Point is that they're negotiating, the Kurd leader is in prison and leading upcoming

talks. One of the points is the no fly zone.