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Isis threat to Kobani: Turkey’s prime minister vows to stop militants
Isis assault on Kurdish city of Kobani ‘reaches decisive moment’
(about 4 hours later)
The Turkish prime minister has said the country will do “whatever we can” to stop the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani falling to Islamic State (Isis) as MPs voted to authorise military action against the militants.
Islamic State (Isis) militants stepped up their attacks on the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani on Friday in what some Kurdish activists described as a “possibly decisive moment in the battle”.
Ahmet Davutoğlu spoke hours after the vote in the Turkish parliament, which authorises cross-border raids and allows coalition forces to launch operations from Turkish territory. Isis fighters are within a few miles of the town centre on three sides.
Idris Nassan, Kobani’s deputy foreign affairs minister, said shelling on the city, near the Turkish border, had intensified since early morning.
“We wouldn’t want Kobani to fall. We’ll do whatever we can to prevent this from happening,” Davutoğlu said in a discussion with journalists broadcast on the A Haber television channel.
“Isis stepped up attacks and shells Kobani from the east,” he said, adding that Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) were able to destroy a tank in a village 4km (2.5 miles) from the city, where a large black cloud of smoke visible was from the Turkish border.
“No other country has the capacity to affect the developments in Syria and Iraq. No other country will be affected like us either,” he said. His comments were in contrast to the Turkish defence minister, Ismet Yilmaz, who earlier said operations should not be expected immediately.
“YPG fighters are still holding up the defence of Kobani for the moment”, Nassan told the Guardian. “And they will fight to the last drop of blood.”
The Isis advance on Kobani, which the group intends to control by the time of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha on Saturday, has driven more than 150,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees into Turkey.
Kurdish forces have in recent days evacuated several villages around the city, and more refugees crossed the border into Turkey.
Local Kurdish fighters have braced for clashes. The BBC, reporting from just across the border, said black Isis flags were visible, while heavy artillery fire and tracer rounds lit the sky around the town.
According to local reports, Kurdish leaders in the border region have called on both sides to observe a ceasefire during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which starts on Saturday.
“Compared with Isis, our weaponry is simple. They have cannons, long-range rockets and tanks,” Idris Nahsen, a Kurdish official in the town, told Agence France-Presse.
“Isis said that they would pray in Kobani on the first holiday of Eid”, said Özgür Amed, a Kurdish activist and journalist. “They have made such threats in the past. They will not be able to do that. The only prayer they will hold in Kobani is for their own funeral.”
The Pentagon said the US-led coalition had conducted at least seven air sorties against Isis around Kobani in the five days to Wednesday, but there were no reports of any strikes on Thursday as the jihadis reportedly came within sight of the city. Syrian human rights activists warned that without urgent intervention to protect the Kurds, the city could fall within hours.
According to local media, Isis took the strategically crucial Zorova Hill to the west of Kobani back from Kurdish YPG forces late on Thursday night. Sources in the Kurdish Democratic Union party, the political wing of the YPG, announced that fighters had retreated to the city to prepare for “guerrilla-style urban warfare”.
“From the east and south, Isis are about a mile from Kobani. Most civilians have left the city, and any minute Isis will be inside Kobani,” said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “There are many questions as to why they [the US-led coalition] don’t attack Isis now as they are easy targets. They have 20 tanks and humvees. Without their heavy vehicles, the Kurds would be able to defeat them.”
In Kobani itself, the mood appeared to be defiant. “Isis will never be able to take this city”, said Bahar, a resident speaking from the office of the defence minister, Ismet Hasan. “We are prepared to face them inside Kobani – if they enter, this city will become their grave.”
According to Kurdish activists and media, fighting has approached the outskirts of the city. “We call on everyone not to give up on Kobani,” said one fighter from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) interviewed by Turkish TV channel IMC TV. “If Kobani falls, we will sacrifice 10,000 martyrs in the process. The fall of Kobani would spell the fall of Kurdistan. We will never give up on Kurdistan.”
Bahar said the city was under heavy attack from all sides. “They fire missiles and rockets at the city, they use heavy weaponry to attack us here. But if they think they can take the city like this they are wrong; that’s a miscalculation.”
He warned that the YPG forces in Kobani were struggling: “We have been fighting for 15 days. We destroy their tanks, and their heavy weapons. We don’t have many weapons left. We ask Kurds to support us.”
Bahar also said thousands of civilians were still in Kobani, contrary to some reports. “Many of these people don’t want to leave, but stay and defend their own land. Others came back from Turkey to fight.”
The Turkish vote came hours after the new UN high commissioner, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, accused Isis of a range of atrocities, including attacks on civilians, executions of captured soldiers, abductions, rapes and the desecration of religious and cultural sites. “The array of violations and abuses perpetrated by Isil [Isis] and associated armed groups is staggering, and many of their acts may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity,” he said.
Many Kurds from Turkey have also joined the fight against Isis. According to the pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Gündem, at least 11 of 25 YPG fighters killed in the past 17 days had Turkish passports.
The UN report also pointed to abuses by Iraqi security forces and pro-Baghdad militias, including potentially indiscriminate and disproportionate air strikes and shelling. Zeid called on Iraq to sign up to the international criminal court so that it would have the jurisdiction to investigate the “horrendous situation” in the country.
Nassan confirmed volunteers from Turkey had arrived in Kobani, but said many of them had little or no fighting experience. “Some have done their military service, but some have no experience at all,” said Nassan. “We need to train them first. The YPG does not take these volunteers to the frontlines, they help out with other means.”
Denmark’s parliament also voted on Thursday to join the coalition against Isis. In a vote of 94 to nine, with many abstentions, the parliament approved four warplanes and three reserve jets to be deployed to northern Iraq. “It was a correct decision, but also a difficult one,” the Danish prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, said.
Nassan also stressed there was no lack of fighters, but of weaponry and ammunition. “We need heavy weapons and more ammunition, we are running low, all we have is ammunition for light arms.”
Ankara had previously rejected military action against Isis in either Syria or Iraq, until a surprise U-turn when the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, pledged his “full support” for the US-led military coalition and their fight against Isis, but tied his promise to certain conditions.
Air strikes conducted by the US-led coalition have not slowed the Isis advance, and Nassan said strikes in Raqqa and Idlib had made matters worse. “Isis fighters from these provinces come to join the fight on Kobani; they run from there to come here. We need air strikes to help us.”
Addressing parliament on Wednesday, Erdoğan said air strikes alone would not defeat Isis but Turkey would not stage ground operations without an internationally enforced security and no-fly zone.
He urged the international community to step up both military and relief efforts to help Syrian Kurds. “We have no hospitals here anymore, and few medical supplies. We are running low on everything: food, water, milk for children.” Most of the supplies available were now coming via Turkey, he explained, often through Kurdish organisations. Injured people are being treated in Turkish hospitals.
“Air strikes will only delay the threat and danger. This has been the case in Iraq so far,” Erdoğan said. “It is inevitable that temporary solutions will cause Iraq to face such interventions every 10 years. Similarly, ignoring Syria will also delay a proper solution.” He also underlined that one of Turkey’s priorities remained the removal of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, an aim not shared by the US-led military coalition.
Nassan warned that an Isis victory in Kobani would lead to atrocities: “Isis has been trying for a year to take Kobani and has always failed. They have suffered huge losses. If they manage to come here, they will rape and kill and slaughter.”
Emrullah Işler, an MP for the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), said the action was necessary because Syria had become “a nest for terror and terrorists”. He said: “Elements affiliated with the Syrian regime are threatening the region. The main [culprit] responsible for the Isis threat is the Syrian regime.”
Isis’s advance to the Turkish border has piled pressure on Ankara to intervene. The prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, said on Thursday that Turkey would do “whatever we can” to stop Kobani falling to Isis, as MPs voted for military action against the militants. The vote authorises cross-border raids and allows coalition forces to launch operations from Turkish territory.
Thursday’s motion will allow for the establishment of a “security zone” on Syrian soil which, Turkey argues, would enable the creation of a haven for the 1.5 million Syrian refugees in the country.
However, Davutoğlu’s comments were in contrast to those of the Turkish defence minister, Ismet Yilmaz, who earlier said operations should not be expected immediately.
Rights groups criticised the idea of a security zone as misleading. “A security zone only creates the illusion of security for refugees,” Andrew Gardner, Turkey researcher for Amnesty International, said. “The border regions are the most embattled zones in the war in Syria and nobody can guarantee the safety for refugees there.”
The Pentagon said the US-led coalition had conducted at least seven air sorties against Isis around Kobani in the five days to Wednesday, but there were no reports of any strikes on Thursday or Friday.
In the past two weeks, the encroachment of Isis insurgents has forced tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds to seek refuge in Turkey. US air strikes have been only partly able to halt the militants’ advance.
Under two separate existing mandates, Turkish troops are already authorised to be deployed across the borders with Iraq and Syria to defend their country against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), active in northern Iraq, and against Assad’s forces.
Both authorisations, due to expire this month, would be extended in the combined mandate MPs are voting for on Thursday. The main opposition Republican People’s party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy party (HDP) both vowed to vote against the motion.
The CHP criticised the proposed bill as “too vague”, but others argue that the volatile and fast-changing security situation in the Syrian conflict rendered an “adjustable” phrasing necessary. “We are dealing with state actors, non-state actors and a conflict that is not contained within national borders”, said security expert Nihat Ali Özcan.
Kurdish groups on both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border have repeatedly accused Turkey of supporting Isis against Kurdish fighters. They argue that the authorisation of troop deployment and a buffer zone across the border serves only as a pretext to establish a military presence in quasi-autonomous Kurdish regions that have emerged as a result of the war in Syria.
Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed PKK leader, warned that if there was a massacre of Kurds in Kobani the peace process between the PKK and the Turkish government would halt.
Analysts underlined that the extended legislation did not mean Turkey would actively enter the conflict in Syria.
