Assault on Kobane

July
On July 2, 2014, following the conquer of Mosul and large regions of north-western Iraq, the Kurdish region of Kobanê (Arabic: عين العرب‎, Ayn Al-Arab) in central northern Syria bordering Turkey was viciously attacked by Islamic State aka ISIS forces with tanks and heavy weapons brought over from Iraq. According to Kurdish sources, ISIS has fired more than 3,000 mortars in four days.

In addition to the 200,000 people living in Kobane canton in peace time, there are currently at least the same number of refugees, mostly Kurds from other northern regions of Syria, taking shelter there.

The pattern and the involvement of Turkey follows what has been seen in the eastern part of Syrian Kurdistan since late 2012 with the Assault on Ras Al-Ayn. The border regions with Turkey both west and east of Kobane canton are already controlled by ISIS, including the border posts at Jarablus and Tal Abyad (see Syrian Military Maps). In an "urgent call" for help to the international community on July 6, the Kurdish National Congress (of Syrian Kurdistan) pointed out that the attackers are able to move freely across the border and in Turkey, while the army is turning a blind eye and wounded ISIS fighters are even treated in Turkish hospitals.

Kidnapped students Already in late May, hundreds of schoolchildren from Kobane went by bus to Aleppo to do their exams, crossing ISIS-controlled territory. On return, they were abducted. ISIS released the female students and younger children, but kept initially 148 13-14 year old ninth grader boys, promising to release them after they'd receive ten days of "Islamic education". Which did not happen, Only a small number were released or managed to flee, and despite protests from several sides even including Human Rights Watch, as of mid-September about 130 of them are still held captive near Jarablus, with reports of heavy indoctrination and light torture.

The deputy foreign relations minister of the Kobane canton, Idriss Nassan, detailed the offensive as follows:


 * IS began its offensive by first capturing the villages of Zor Mughar, Beyadi and Ziyarete, 40-45 kilometers (25-28 miles) west of Kobani. The YPG pushed IS out of these villages after hard-fought battles. IS left behind more than 100 dead, a Humvee, a tank, some Doushka heavy machine guns and automatic weapons. YPG lost 16 of its fighters.


 * On July 7, the IS target was the Kun Eftar village, slightly north of the Turkish sovereign territory of the Tomb of Suleiman Shah. Here YPG lost two fighters but IS lost 20 to 30. IS could not achieve its goals. Next came attacks from Tel Abyad in the east. On July 8, IS attacked Evdiko village 8 kilometers (5 miles) west of Tel Abyad. In that clash, six YPG fighters and civilians were killed. Another IS target was Abu Surra village, 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Tel Abyad. There, IS blew up a bomb-laden truck at a YPG checkpoint, killing four YPG fighters.

By July 8, Kurdish officials were speaking of at least one village reclaimed (Zormixar), and 200 ISIS fighters killed, with no word on their own losses. On the same day, Kurdish news agency Firat put the number of killed ISIS fighters at 270, with 21 fighters of Rojava's self-defense militia People's Protection Units (YPG) and one civilian dead on their side.

According to Fehim Taştekin writing for Al Monitor, the reasons for the assault are:


 * IS encountered the toughest resistance in Syria at Rojava and despite all its efforts, could not overcome it. Rojava became a major obstruction to IS.
 * Kobane is the weakest link among three cantons of Rojava, which are not contiguous. Nassan and all other Kurds believe that by capturing Kobane, the IS wants to wipe out the autonomy project.
 * If Kobane falls, the IS will next target the Mursitpinar border crossing to Turkey to further consolidate its presence on the Turkish border.
 * IS cannot establish a land connection between Jarablus and Tel Abyad, which it controls, by using the 85-kilometer (53-mile) road parallel to the Turkish border that links those two towns. They now have to travel 250 kilometers (160 miles) for the same trip.

On July 11, Firat reports that the YPG has "for the first time" used anti-tank missiles, destroying an ISIS-manned tank in the village of Carikli. Participants of a solidarity vigil action in the Turkish border village of Ziyaret report that a train carrying Turkish tanks was seen driving through the region with unknown destination.

A YPG press release on July 13 states that 61 ISIS fighters had been killed during the last 24 hours in continued attacks on several fronts. In another statement ISIS is accused of using chemical weapons in their attacks. Traces had been found on two dead YPG fighters (photos published with the statement) and a call was made to the international community to come investigate details, as Kobane's situation under siege doesn't give the local authorities access to the equipment necessary to do so.

After thousands attended solidarity events on the Turkish side of the border, in the night of July 15, about 300 Turkish Kurds teared down the border fence and crossed into Rojava to join the fight, which continues on three fronts: To the West around Zor Mixar, to the South in the villages on the banks of Euphrates, and to the East around Kendal, Evdıke and Gıre Sor. The nearest ISIS came to the city of Kobane is 35 kilometers, while their most powerful mortars reach 25 kilometers.

On July 19, tens of thousands gathered on both sides of the border to celebrate the second birthday of the so-called "Rojava Revolution". Despite Turkish police using tear gas and water cannons trying to stop them, at least a thousand people managed to tear down the border fence and cross over to Kobane to join the still ongoing fight against ISIS.

After some more days of fierce fighting, ISIS had to retreat and on July 22, the Kurds started a counter-offensive named "Revenge for the martyrs of Kobane" securing the borders of Kobane canton before ISIS would be able to re-group. The stated goal of ISIS, to conquer Kobane before the end of Ramadan, had no chance of being reached anymore.

September


On September 15, 2014, while over in the US a debate on if and how to bomb ISIS positions in Iraq and Syria was going on, and how this could lead to "strange bedfellows", ISIS started their yet heaviest attacks on Kobane from three directions (see above illustration) with tanks and heavy artillery and ongoing support from NATO-member Turkey which keeps the borders open for them. On September 17 several sources report about a train delivering fighters and material to the Turkish side of the border near Tel Abyad, stopping and unloading to the Syrian side in the village of Silib Qeran, which has no train station. Due to the intensity of attacks, the YPG starts to evacuate citizens from villages east of Kobane town, with the latter said to host 600-700,000 people at that time - about three times as much as normal.

Sweeping through the canton
In the following days the Jihadis continued to advance towards Kobane city and came in distance to shell it with long-range artillery. People started to flee to the Turkish border, where they were stuck and prevented from entering by Turkish military. Only after Western Journalists arrived on September 19 was the border finally opened. People protesting the closed border on the Turkish side had earlier been treated with tear gas and water cannons. As of September 20, 45,000 Kurds have crossed the border into Turkey at eight places, while at least 300 Turkish Kurds crossed in the other direction to join the fight against ISIS.

In an interview the Premier of Kobane Anwar Moslem speaks of several trains who have been delivering support and fighters to the approaching forces from the Turkish side, and says many eyewitnesses have seen them. He says he will make them available to journalists if they come to Kobane. At a September 20 press conference in Turkey's parliament, MP Demir Celik claimed that the recipients of the material on the trains were veteran Turkish Special Forces fighting with "the group presented to us as ISIS". He claims to have reliable information that they are the backbone of ISIS' strategical moves from the taking of Mosul to the ongoing attack on Kobane, numbering not less than 2,000 officers "who in the 1990s were cutting off the noses and ears of Kurdish (PKK) fighters".

Meanwhile a Turkish nurse went public with a letter to parliament and several media organizations, detailing how she has treated many wounded ISIS members and higher-ups at the private hospital she works at, and now is "sick and tired" of treating people "who chop off heads." She says the people arrive there under false name and are introduced as Syrian "opposition members". Several details are given.


 * "The ISIL commander named Muhammet Ali R. who was admitted to our hospital on Aug. 7 was treated at room number 323. Many of his bodyguards kept watch around the hospital. Many other ISIL commanders like him and soldiers have been treated at our hospital, and returned to war after the completion of their treatment. I don't want to help these people. I want you to inspect these hospitals. And I am referring the owners of the hospital and its management to God."

Refugees from the villages of Yapsê and Dinayikê, arriving in Suruç on the other side of the border facing Kobane, report that they have seen a large number of buses approaching the border in the night of September 14, one day before the offensive started. They unloaded what the witnesses claim were "up to 3,000 people with beards and wearing robes" who crossed the border under Turkish military supervision and passed through their villages.

These stories together with the fact that the 49 Turkish hostages held by ISIS were released on September 20, and the Turkish government admitted that there has been "a deal", raised questions with many inside and outside Turkey about what exactly this deal might have been. Top PKK officials accuse the AKP government of "selling out Kobane" and threaten to dump the ongoing peace process between the Turkish Kurds and the government.

Panic spreads
As of September 23, the official number of refugees due to the events in Kobane reached 130,000, with Amnesty International calling on Turkey to keep the borders open and the international community to provide assistance dealing with the crisis. Some Kurdish sources including the PYD head claim that the numbers are vastly exaggerated by Turkey. People trying to return to join the fight after they brought their families over to Turkey are often not allowed back. By September 24 there are reports of 5,000 people trying to return but being prevented to do so by Turkish forces. Some accuse Turkey of having created panic with those huge numbers and reports of Kobane being "evacuated", which made them leave in the first place. They suspect the intent is to "empty Kobane" of Kurds.

A September 22 YPG statement reports about casualty numbers in the first week. According to this, 232 ISIS members were killed, four tanks, 13 military vehicles and 7 others carrying heavy weapons destroyed. 32 YPG/YPJ fighters lost their lives defending Kobane. The ISIS advance on the eastern front was halted, while there was still heavy fighting on the other fronts. A YPG statement from a day later says 84 ISIS fighters had been killed during the last day and their advance halted on all fronts, although intense attacks continued. It is unclear and not mentioned at all if and how much the US bombing campaign, that started in the early morning between the statements and is said to have included strikes on Tal Abyad, influenced the events.

On September 27, the BBC claims that "Islamic State fighters besieging the Syrian town of Kobane on the Turkish border have been targeted by air strikes, reports from the area say", while in reality reports from the ground say that there have been no strikes against ISIS positions by the planes flying over Kobane that day.

On September 30, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports that "ISIS beheaded 4 fighters from YPG after capturing them in EIn al-Arab”Kobane” countryside, 3 of them were females."

Closing in on the city
On October 2, SOHR reports as urgent that ISIS is hundreds of meters away from Kobane:
 * SOHR was informed that clashes took place between ISIS and YPG hundreds of meters away form Ein al-Arab Kobane from the easte and south-east of the city, clashes also taking place 2-3 kms away west of the city, amid fears of breaking into the city by the IS at any moment and commites massacres and kills whats left of the civilians who refused to flee their houses . ISIS have taken over 350 villages in the past 16 days, and displaces no less than 300,000 from Kobane and Its countryside, the IS also stool dozens of thousands of sheep, houses , cars . ISIS also settled its supporters in Zerek village in the western countryside of Ein al-Arab “Kobane” , and slaughtered a Kurdish civilian from Seren area, after he was captured.

Once ISIS came into shelling distance of Kobane city, they made use of it to the extent that several rounds of artillery landed across the border in Turkey, which led to the Turkish army positioning dozens of tanks on their side of the border. In the early days of October, the Turkish parliament approved military action in Syria and president and prime minister started to make noises of being willing to do "whatever it takes" to save Kobane. As of October 4, no action was taken and no "coalition" airstrikes on ISIS positions were observed. Meanwhile, reports of Turkish police using tear gas and water cannons against protesters, as well as the military engaging in cooperation with the ISIS militants at the border continued.

After days without advance but shelling of Kobane town and following promises that they would hold prayer in town on the first day of the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha (October 4), ISIS started another offensive on October 2 with concentration on trying to take the strategic hill of Miştenûr overseeing Kobane. According to an October 4 YPG statement, several attack waves were repulsed with 67 ISIS fighters and 10 defenders dead.

Following remarks by US vice president Biden about Turkey's role in the rise of ISIS and Erdogan "admitting mistakes" to him about "letting too many people in", on October 4 Erdogan demanded an apology from Biden or he would be "history to me", denying that he ever made those remarks and claiming that "Foreign fighters have never entered Syria from our country". Just hours later, Biden apologized. On the afternoon of that day, Kurdish protestors on the Turkish side of the border threw stones at a Turkish TV team after accusing them of biased reporting. In the following riot police assault several Western journalists came under tear gas together with the protesters.

As on the days before, on October 5 many were watching and cheering from the Turkish side of the border when YPG destroyed an ISIS tank below Miştenûr hill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UjtKZs1ovA

Entering the city
With intensifying shelling and only sporadic "coalition" airstrikes without effect, on Monday reports of ISIS tanks on Miştenûr hill and raised black flags in the eastern part of Kobane started to come in. According to some, street fight inside the city has started. Writes The Guardian:


 * Meanwhile, Saleh Muslim, co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union party (PYD), went to Ankara this weekend to hold meetings with Turkish security officials to discuss possible Turkish assistance in defending Kobani against Isis. Turkey’s government has vowed it will not sit idly by and let Kobani fall.


 * Turkish media reported that security officials in Ankara urged Muslim to convince the YPG, the armed wing of the PYD that is currently battling Isis in Kobani, to join the ranks of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and to “take an open stance against the Syrian regime” of Bashar al-Assad.

In a statement to Firat News Agency, Salih Muslim said that "whoever is going to act, should do so now." In a highly informative and pretty much to-the-point article about the situation, David Stockman closes with the questions:


 * If the Turks are unwilling to stop an easily preventable mass slaughter by ISIS on their own doorstep what kind of fractured and riven coalition has Washington actually assembled? And how will this coalition of the disingenuous, the hypocritical and the politically opportunistic ever succeed in bringing peace and stability to the historic cauldron of tribal and religious conflict in Mesopotamia and the Levant that two decades of Washington’s wars and regime change interventions have only drastically intensified?

When pictures showing ISIS flags raised on a hill over Kobane and more reports of fighting in the city surfaced in the afternoon, solidarity demonstrations started all over Europe and in many Turkish cities, with some of the latter turning violent pretty quickly. By night, large crowds were for example blocking and marching on the TEM highway in Istanbul. By late Tuesday, at least nine people had died in the heavy and ongoing clashes between Kurds, AKP supporters and the police all over Turkey. After a night in which military was deployed in several cities in Turkey's Kurdish regions to impose a curfew, the death toll had risen to at least 14.

Airstrikes turn serious
In the late night of Monday and for the first time in broad daylight on Tuesday, the "coalition" conducted a series of air strikes witnessed by journalists on the ground, followed by a rather quiet morning. According to the Department of Defense:


 * An airstrike south of Kobani destroyed three ISIL armed vehicles and damaged another, and another strike southeast of Kobani destroyed an ISIL armed vehicle carrying anti-aircraft artillery. Two airstrikes southwest of Kobani damaged an ISIL tank, and another strike south of Kobani destroyed an ISIL unit.

An October 7 YPG statement did not mention the air strikes but several successful operations in direct combat, despite shelling "from three directions", claiming that in the last 24 hours 67 ISIS fighters died while the death toll among the defenders was 12.

Statements from the Turkish president and prime minister told the world that "air strikes are not enough" to defeat ISIS and kept making demands that the Syrian Government should be targeted as well before they participate in any coalition.

Eight air strikes on October 8 "destroyed five ISIL armed vehicles, an ISIL supply depot, an ISIL command and control compound, an ISIL logistics compound, and eight ISIL occupied barracks, plus damaged another", according to a U.S. Central Command statement. Agreeing with Kurdish sources and contradicting media reports about the fall of Kobane, the statement says that most of the city remains under YPG control.



In an interview on Tuesday evening, Salih Muslim said that the strikes had started to become effective on Monday (incidently following his statement that "whoever is going to act, should do so now"), but pointed out that they wouldn't be necessary if only his people would be allowed to buy anti-tank weapons and missiles on the international market and Turkey would open the border gate to make a delivery possible (which he says they had promised him to do days ago in Ankara) and/or stop their assistance to ISIS. Like with the Kurds protesting in Turkey and all over Europe, these are the demands, contrary to what some Western media make it look like: that anybody wants Turkey to invade Rojava.

In three October 11 interviews with the Kobane canton premier minister Anwar Moslem, foreign minister Idris Naasan and PYD co-president Asya Abdullah, the latter from Kobane city, the officials called for a corridor through Turkey for humanitarian aid and weapons. While the fighting morale is said to be high and they think to be able to defend the city center "for months", all report that there are still many civilians in Kobane and the ISIS gangs now control water and electricity supply. According to Asya Abdullah, ISIS presses local Arab youths in the regions they control into coming to Kobane as reinforcements, promising booty. Which leads to high casualty numbers among the untrained fighters. She calls on Arabs and all other groups in the region to not allow ISIS to "destroy the fraternity of peoples".

International voices like UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Under-Secretary-General Valerie Amos and UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura joined the choir demanding immediate aid for Kobane.

After a week with intensified and thanks to better coordination between YPG and the US-led "coalition" more precise air strikes, some recently lost territory was gained back from the ISIS gangs and a hill outside town was captured, with the larger Miştenûr hill still in ISIS hands. Even while still no weapons had reached the Kurds and ISIS got reinforcements from other parts of their controlled territory, a YPG commander said on Friday, October 17, that the initiative was now with them.





Airdrops deliver supplies
In the night to Monday, October 20, for the first time weapons, ammunition and medical supplies were delivered to Kobane in multiple airdrops by a US Military C-130 plane. The weapons were supplies originally delivered to the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq, which gave the go-ahead to divert them to Kobane. According to a Turkish Foreign ministry statement on Monday, Turkish airspace was not used to carry out the airdrops, but Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu claimed that Turkey "is" facilitating Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces to cross into Kobane. On the same day he was allowed to prominently express his urge to topple the "Syrian regime" in The Guardian, calling on the international community to make "good prevail over evil" (Turkey over Syria, that is).

On the day before, Serena Shim, a journalist for Iranian Press TV who investigated the border incidents were ISIS militants crossed over from Turkey with the help or turning of a blind eye of the Turkish military, and was accused by Turkish Intelligence of "spying", died in a car crash on the way to her hotel in Suruç. Shim was a U.S. citizen of Lebanese origin. In an obituary for his colleague, Vijay Prashad remarks about Turkey helping ISIS:


 * This is a story that takes one to Urfa, a city that is linked to Syria through the border crossing at Akçakale. At Urfa’s Balıklıgöl State Hospital, evidence for the treatment of Islamic State fighters is not camouflaged – it is there in plain sight. The Islamic State wounded from the battle of Kobane cross over for treatment here. [...] Barzan Iso, a Syrian Kurdish journalist, had already reported that Qatari charities have been using the Jarabulus crossing to get aid to the Islamic State. I had also reported on this but did not have any evidence that trucks with logos from international organizations were being used for this purpose.


 * From the Turkish towns of Mardin, Kilis and Urfa, the foreign jihadis made an easy transit into Syria. Until recently, Turkish authorities did not try to hide this “rat line.” Oğuzeli Airport in Gaziantep (Turkey) had come to resemble the old airport in Peshawar (Pakistan), as the bearded wonders disembarked with a glint in their eyes to join what they saw as a holy war. Pakistani intelligence had the same steel in their walk as Turkish intelligence – the parallels seemed to me more and more appropriate when a Kurdish commander told me that the Islamic State is to Turkey as the Taliban is to Pakistan.

Asked about the airdrops and Erdogan's remarks about the PYD being a terrorist organization no different from PKK (and ISIS), State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf insisted that "the PYD is a different group than the PKK legally under the United States law" (PKK is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organisation since 1997. PYD is not on the list).

Following their reinforcements of the weekend and the US airdrops, ISIS attacked with full force on Monday, maybe to use the opportunity before any of the Turkey-announced Peshmerga reinforcements could arrive. A YPG press release on Tuesday evening speaks of 11 dead defenders and over 70 dead attackers on several fronts in the last 24 hours, including two foiled attempts at the ISIS speciality of suicide car bombings.

On Wednesday Hürriyet reports that the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government had decided to send 200 Peshmerga fighters with heavy weapons to Kobane, following the Turkish green light. By Sunday, October 26 Peshmerga sources clarified, contradicting media reports, that there was still no date and time for a deployment set, while the attackers had again received reinforcements and fierce fighting was going on on all fronts.

As in July, there had been rumours and reports about the use of chemical weapons in the recent attack wave before, but on October 22, information about an alleged use of chlorine gas was coming out of several sources and found more widespread coverage. According to among others PYD co-chair Asya Abdullah and Dr. Walit Omar, both speaking from Kobane, at least eight civilians and an unspecified number of fighters had been treated with symptoms indicating the use of those weapons by the attacking forces. The head of SOHR claimed to know that these reports are false and it was only an allergic reaction of one person due to large amounts of smoke created by bombardments.

On October 27, a video appeared showing alleged ISIS hostage John Cantlie reporting from what rather plausibly looks like a quite calm Kobane, claiming that contrary to Kurdish and Western media reports, ISIS was in the process of mopping up and the fight in Kobane almost over. Shortly after publication, Dubai Al Aan TV reporter Jenan Moussa, who has been reporting from the Turkish side of Kobane border for weeks, tweeted a video allegedly showing a recent tour of Kobane city center with Kurdish fighters.

Reinforcements arrive
In the morning of Wednesday, October 29, a group of FSA-affiliated fighters crossed the border from Turkey into Kobane with eight pick-up trucks. Already waiting at the border was a group of 85 Peshmerga who had flown in from Iraqi Kurdistan. They were waiting for another 65 Peshmerga fighters who went on the trip by road with the equipment a day earlier. They were expected to cross into Kobane together later. Meanwhile, airstrikes continued.

In an op-ed published in the New York Times the day before, YPG commander Meysa Abdo asked the international community to pressure Turkey into allowing the obvious measure they were still preventing: Forces from the other two Syrian Kurdish enclaves to reinforce their comrades in Kobane with fighters and equipment.