.
9/19/14, "Kurds issue call to arms as Islamic State gains in Syria," Reuters, via Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, Tom Perry, Beirut
"Islamic State fighters besieged a Kurdish town in northern Syria on
Thursday after seizing 21 villages in a major assault, prompting a call
to arms from Kurds in neighbouring Turkey who urged followers to go and
help resist the group's advance.
"We've lost touch with many of the residents living in the
villages that [Islamic State] seized," said Ocalan Iso, deputy head of
the Kurdish forces in Kobani.
The Kurds were appealing for military aid from other Kurdish
groups in the region including the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), he
said. Support from Kurds who crossed from Turkey helped to repel an
Islamic State attack on the town in July.
PKK rebels later issued a call for young men in Turkey's south-east to join the fight.
Footage posted on YouTube on Wednesday by the YPG, the main
Kurdish armed group in Syria, appeared to show Kurdish fighters armed
with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades battling a tank flying
the Islamic State's black flag west of Kobani.
About 3000 men, women and children arrived at the Turkish
border roughly 10 kilometres from Kobani but were still waiting on the
Syrian side after night fell. Turkish forces stopped the crowd from
crossing.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the governors of border
provinces in Turkey, where Kurdish militants have waged a three-decade
insurgency to push for greater autonomy, had been ordered to extend aid
to refugees on Syrian side of the border.
"We're ready to help our brothers who are building up at the
borders regardless of their ethnicity, religion and sect. But our
priority is to deliver aid within Syria's borders," he told reporters in
Ankara.
Redur Xelil, spokesman for the YPG, said Islamic State had encircled the town.
The group was using tanks, rockets and artillery in the
attack. "We call on world powers to move to halt this barbaric assault,"
he said.
Western states have expanded contact with the main Syrian
Kurdish party, the PYD, since Islamic State seized wide areas of Iraq in
June. The YPG, which says it has 50,000 fighters, says it should be a
natural partner in a coalition the United States is trying to assemble
to fight Islamic State.
But the Syrian Kurds' relationship with the West is
complicated by their ties to the PKK - a group listed as a terrorist
organisation in many Western states.
Western officials also cite concerns about the Syrian Kurds'
ambiguous relationship with President Bashar al-Assad, who has mostly
left the Kurds to their own devices while focusing its firepower on
insurgents fighting to unseat him. The Syrian Kurds have denied
accusations of cooperating with Damascus."
Image: "Turkish soldiers stand guard as Syrians approach the border fence near
the Turkish town of Suruc, opposite the Syrian town known as Ayn al-Arab
in Arabic and Kobani in Kurdish. Photo: Reuters"
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9/18/14, "Islamic State: ‘The world cares nothing’ for Syrian city under Isis siege," UK Independent, Patrick Cockburn
"The missiles being fired by Isis at Kobani probably come from an
arsenal of weapons including tanks, artillery, Humvees and armoured
vehicles captured by Isis when it routed five Iraqi army divisions and
captured Mosul and Tikrit in June. Mr Nassan said “they have everything
except planes”."...
.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Contrary to US military statement, Kurds are in no position to "help" anyone beat ISIS because ISIS is beating the Kurds with tanks and heavy weapons paid for by US taxpayers. Kurd families flee 21 more villages on foot as ISIS surrounds them. Turkey won't let Kurd families cross so they await genocide-Reuters
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