Despite Kobani's Liberation From ISIS, Many Syrians See Little To Celebrate

GAZIANTEP, Turkey -- Syrians say there's little to celebrate even if Kurdish fighters, aided by a barrage of U.S.-led airstrikes, have successfully driven the Islamic State from the Kurdish town of Kobani in northern Syria earlier this week.

Sure, the U.S. has applauded the news, and Kurds across the border in Turkey danced in the streets. But the regime of President Bashar Assad continues to drop barrel bombs on its citizens –- without any meaningful U.S. response -- and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is tightening its grip elsewhere in Syria.

ISIS Launches Attack On Syria's Kobani From Turkey: Activists

BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group launched an attack Saturday on the Syrian border town of Kobani from Turkey, a Kurdish official and activists said, although Turkey denied that the fighters had used its territory for the raid.

The assault began when a suicide bomber driving an armored vehicle detonated his explosives on the border crossing between Kobani and Turkey, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for Syria's powerful Kurdish Democratic Union Party.

U.S.-Led Airstrikes Stall Islamic State Militants' Advance On Kobani

MURSITPINAR, Oct 16 (Reuters) - The advance of Islamic State fighters on Kobani stalled on Thursday according to a monitoring group, after U.S.-led coalition warplanes launched their heaviest bombardment yet on the militants, who have been assaulting the Syrian border town for nearly a month.

Last week Turkish and U.S. officials said Islamic State were on the verge of taking Kobani from its heavily outgunned Kurdish defenders, after seizing strategic points deep inside the town.

Kurds Halt Islamic State Militant Advance In Kobani, Say Activists

MURSITPINAR, Turkey (AP) — Kurdish fighters have been able to halt the advance of the Islamic State extremist group in the Syrian border town of Kobani, where the U.S.-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes for more than two weeks, activists said Sunday.

The coalition, which is targeting the militants in and around Kobani, conducted at least two airstrikes Sunday on the town, according to an Associated Press journalist. The U.S. Central Command said warplanes from the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates conducted four airstrikes in Syria on Saturday and Sunday, including three in Kobani that destroyed an Islamic State fighting position and staging area.

Kurds Struggle To Defend Kobani

SURUC, Turkey (AP) — Kurdish militiamen are putting up a fierce fight to defend a Syrian town near the border with Turkey but are struggling to repel the Islamic State group, which is advancing and pushing in from two sides, Syrian activists and Kurdish officials said Saturday.

The battle for Kobani is still raging despite more than two weeks of airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition targeting the militants in and around the town. The strikes, which are aimed at rolling back the militants' gains, appear to have done little to blunt their onslaught on Kobani, which began in mid-September.

Islamic State Has Taken a Third of Strategic Kobani in Syria but Lost Tuz Khurmato in Iraq

al-Khalij [The Gulf] (Sharjah, UAE) reports that the Syrian Human Rights Observatory says ISIL fighters are now in one third of the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane (`Ayn al-`Arab).  The radical fundamentalists have advanced into the besieged city despite a new round of US and other bombings on its outskirts.  In contrast to reports that ISIL more or less has taken control of the town of (in good days) 50,000, the US maintains that Kurdish fighters are still in control of the bulk of the city.

In Iraq, the Kurdish Peshmerga militia coordinated with the Iraqi army to retake the largely Turkmen district of Tuz Khurmato, including dozens of villages.

The Peshmerga and the Iraqi army now have their sights on Tikrit, a Sunni Arab city north of Baghdad.  That would be the fourth major campaign against ISIL there; all have so far failed.


Rumors are flying in Iraq that ISIL may make a play for Kirkuk, a disputed oil city in the province of the same name, now in the hands of the Kurdish Peashmerga.
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Original Article
Source: truthdig.com/
Author: Juan Cole

'A Terrible Slaughter Is Coming'

The theme of the week in the Syria conflict—that airstrikes are of only limited use in the struggle to degrade and destroy the Islamic State terror group—is about to be underscored in terrible fashion in the besieged border town of Kobani, which is under sustained, and mainly unanswered, assault by as many as 9,000 ISIS terrorists armed with tanks and rocket launchers.

I just got off the phone with a desperate-sounding Kurdish intelligence official, Rooz Bahjat, who said he fears that Kobani could fall to ISIS within the next 24 hours. If it does, he predicts that ISIS will murder thousands in the city, which is crammed with refugees—Kurdish, Turkmen, Christian, and Arab—from other parts of the Syrian charnel house. As many as 50,000 civilians remain in the town, Bahjat said.

Thousands Flee Into Turkey Fearing Imminent ISIS Attack On Kurdish Town Of Kobani

DIKMETAS, Turkey, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani called on Friday for international intervention to protect a Kurdish town in neighboring Syria from Islamic State fighters who have forced many Syrian Kurds to flee across the border into Turkey.

Thousands of Kurds crossed the frontier on Friday, fearing an imminent attack on the border town of Ayn al-Arab, known as Kobani in Kurdish, as Islamic State (IS) fighters advanced after seizing dozens of nearby villages over the past two days.