Talk:Assault on Kobane

No talk page at all? That doesn't seem right. Now that Newsweek has written about it I suppose Kobane is the logical place for US air strikes, if they happen. --Caustic Logic (talk) 22:40, 20 September 2014 (UTC)


 * No, it's Ankara. ;o) --CE (talk) 09:00, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Kobaine, aka Ain Al Arab, is in Syria, near the border of Turkey. It is inhabited by Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, and Armenians, and since July 2012 is controlled by the Kurds. As such it is a part of story, potentially involving host countries Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. E.g. Kurdish Peshmerga forces recently clashed with Iranian forces near a Kurdish Iranian city Sardasht, located on the border of Iran and the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. We may want to have some pages for Kurdistan as a whole (and this starts to get complicated, with several intersecting players involved, and no own state for the Kurds in existence. )

It appears that Turkey  recently  warmed up towards a Kurdish state in Northern Iraq, but still fearful of greater Kurdish autonomy spilling over to its own lands  --Resup (talk) 11:57, 24 September 2014 (UTC)


 * If you haven't read it already, take a look at my attempt at describing the micro situation in a very similar chain of events almost two years ago. In the broader picture, the main reason why the Iraqi Kurds get help and the Syrian and Turkish Kurds have problems doing so is ... the latter's leading political forces are "commies" in the eyes of the "West". --CE (talk) 13:17, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Report: Up to 700 "trapped"

Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy for Syria  said 500-700 elderly people and other civilians were still trapped in the town, while 10,000 to 13,000 others were stuck close to the border. --Resup (talk) 18:51, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

23.10 NY Times Editorial: Why Kobani Must Be Saved --Resup (talk) 03:55, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

NATO airstrikes
NATO has finally bombed "ISIS" in the Kobane suburbs. (video) Military Maps puts the spot on the main road to the south. NATO logic: $1 billion bomber drops a $100,000 bomb on a $5 tent a $10 million M1A1 tank they paid for. Best of all: the B1 bomber makes a 10,000 miler return trip to hit a spot that is 1 mile from the NATO border. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 13:13, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Pentagon: it may not end just there--Resup (talk) 13:50, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/opinion/why-kobani-must-be-saved.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region

International Organisations
Under-Secretary-General Valerie Amos - Statement on Kobane/Ayn al-Arab "If we don't act now, this will be another tragedy for the Syrian people and a stain on the conscience of humanity."

.--Resup (talk) 05:38, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

ISIS Operations in and from Turkey
Late September: video footage and a photo from a Turkish news crew supposedly show a small group of ISIS guys at an un-guarded crossing to Syria (a small underpass of the border railroad), which A Bellingcat investigation geo-locates an apparent match on October 1, several km west of Kobane. There were men a ways in on a Syrian hilltop, maybe just signaling. That investigator thought the clothing and location suggested, but didn't prove, they were ISIS/Daesh fighters moving freely at a hole in the Turkish border. It was noted this doesn't prove Turkish government complicity. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:21, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Nov. 29 Suicide Bombings: Kurds blame Turkey as Isis suicide bombers attack Kobani, Reuters via Irish Times - The Atlantic (the Wire) reported it - Yahoo News re-post of that got hundreds of comments, mostly urging Turkey's expulsion from NATO, some with further measures proposed. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:21, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Same in SPIEGEL which reports this as fact, article written yesterday before Ankara denied the Undeniable (see more evidence I just added). Takes only a couple of comments until someone demands to kick Turkey out of NATO. First step would be to remove the German PATRIOTs, though, which were moved there after ... what was it, the Reyhanli bombings? In any case something that turned out to have been done without the involvement of yesteryear's new Hitler Assad. We'll see. I doubt there will be consequences for Erdogan and his smirking little sidekick, but they are really stretching it now. --CE (talk) 13:07, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh, btw, there has been a surprisingly direct (English language) report by Deutsche Welle about ISIS supply lines from Turkey. Tony Cartalucci has some crucial comments on the context of the short film (which is embedded over there).

Other
Tass rebroadcasts Western reports on a topic of malahim, not commenting on it.

Russia: UNSC authorization required. --Resup (talk) 15:41, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

A rare Russian video report from Kobane (or nearby). Report is strongly critical of Turkey, blaming it for halting humanitarian help to Kurds in Kobane, not allowing refugees to Turkey and insufficient help to those already there; while helping ISIS, including ammunition (and as the report claims, even some tanks). Turkey actions are places in perspective as being anti-Sadat. An elderly Kurd refugee interviewed towards the end laments the civil was in Syria which destroyed their cities and left them with nothing. He mentioned that their complaints before the civil war were that they could not identify themselves as Kurds in their passport. (Report appears to try to convey some pro-Assad and critical of Turkey impression.) --Resup (talk) 14:03, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Article Idea
It's a bit late to work ideally, but ... CE, you've become an expert on this subject. You should write up an article on it. Even just as "CE," you've got some presence so I think Global Research would run it. One angle that made me almost want to write it myself was the headline about how ISIS was now conquering places "on NATO's doorstep." I guess what they meant was they were taking over next to a door other than the one most of their members probably entered Syria through ... But I'd have to brush up on a lot, and I'm already pressed for time (aren't we all?) Up to me, nothing. Up to you, maybe collaborative, your call. Ideally it's mention Turkey's insane claim that no one crosses in through them, compared to the Reyhanli bombing and that border crossing dispute where (JaN?) threatened to do it again and got the crossing re-opened, stuff like that. Maybe that's too ambitious, but the idea's got some potential and I should mention it. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:15, 10 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'll think about that. There's certainly a lot to say about these denials, especially combined with the Ras Al-Ayn story two years ago. When everything happened directly through the border post and these gangs still called themselves FSA, long before anybody had heard of ISIS. Unfortunately I've seen that one of the main sources I used at the time, the German-Kurdish diekurden.de, has completely disappeared and the URL now goes to some advertising crap. --CE (talk) 10:18, 11 October 2014 (UTC)