All about Kobane

Turkey's reluctance to take action against ISIS/ISIL/IS/xyz while delightfully happy at what the jihadi army is doing to the Syrian Kurds is not at all surprising to those who have been following the traitorous wannabe EU nation all throughout the Syrian conflict.

Live Updates from RTNews:
The US-led coalition   is conducting airstrike assault on positions of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) organization in Syria and Iraq. The strikes involve a mix of fighter, bomber and tomahawk land-attack missiles...
Wednesday, October 8
09:35 GMT:
U.S.-led air strikes on Wednesday pushed Islamic State fighters back to the edges of the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani, which they had appeared set to seize after a three-week assault, Kurdish officials in the town said.
The town has become the focus of international attention since the Islamists' advance drove 180,000 of the area's mostly Kurdish inhabitants to flee into adjoining Turkey, which has infuriated its own restive Kurdish minority by refusing to intervene.

From AlMonitor:
Turkey's leaders see Kobani as opportunity, not threat 
As Islamic State (IS) fighters keep up their battle to gain control over Kobani, a strategic Syrian Kurdish-controlled enclave on Turkey’s border, the effects of the conflict are being felt in Turkey itself. Thousands of Kurds took to the streets across the country on Oct. 7 to protest Turkey’s inaction against the Islamic State's seemingly unstoppable advance. In the southeastern town of Varto, a 17-year-old Kurdish youth was reported killed by live ammunition allegedly fired by security forces at the crowds. Elsewhere across the country, police clashed with demonstrators, trying to push them back with pressurized water and pepper gas while the Kurds responded with Molotov cocktails in a foretaste of the violence that is likely to engulf the country should Kobani fall......

From BelfastTelegraph:
Isis in Kobani: Why is the Syrian town so important?  
And what are Turkish Kurds protesting against?
The Syrian-Turkish border town has been under siege by Isis for weeks

The battle to stop Isis capturing the Syrian town of Kobani continues as the Islamists attempt to consolidate their power on the doorstep of Europe.
The town has become the focus of increasingly desperate efforts by Kurdish forces backed by US air strikes to stop the militants taking control.

The black flag of Isis fluttering over the town has been joined by the banner of a Kurdish forces but the battle is still on a knife-edge. But do you know where Kobani is and why it is so important?...

From BBC:
Clashes as Turkish Kurds protest over Kobane policy   
At least 12 people have been killed in clashes between Kurdish protesters and police in Turkey, reports say.
Riot police used tear gas and water cannon in a number of towns and cities as the disturbances spread across the country.
Protesters are unhappy at perceived Turkish inaction in defending the town of Kobane in Syria from an attack by Islamic State militants......

From Independent:
 ISIS on the verge of victory in Kobani as US Strategy lies in ruins
Jihadists close to taking city near Turkish border.

From Peace&ProsperityInstitute:
The Siege Of Kobani:  Obama’s Syrian Fiasco In Motion
Another humanitarian catastrophe may be just hours away at Kobani. The latter is the Syrian Kurdish town on the border with Turkey that is now surrounded by ISIS tanks and is being pounded day after day by ISIS heavy artillery. Already this lethal phalanx, which fuses 21st century American technology and equipment with 12th century religious fanaticism, has rolled through dozens of Kurdish villages and towns in the region around Kobani, sending 180,000 refugees fleeing for their lives across the border.

Self-evidently the lightly armed Kurdish militias desperately holding out in Kobani are fighting the right enemy — that is, the Islamic State. So why has Obama’s grand coalition not been able to relieve the siege?  Why haven’t American bombers and cruise missiles, for instance, been able to destroy the American tanks and artillery which a terrifying band of butchers has brought to bear on several hundred thousand innocent Syrian Kurds who have made this enclave their home for more than a century? Why has not NATO ally Turkey, with a 600,000 man military, 3,500 tanks and 1,000 modern aircraft and helicopters, done anything meaningful to help the imperiled Kurds?

Let’s see. The US is making perfunctory air strikes. Yet with no boots on the ground in the context of close urban combat in a city of 50,000 — a major air onslaught would result in massive civilian casualties. Although Obama already has much blood on his hands, he is apparently not ready for a Gaza-on-the-Euphrates.

So then why doesn’t Turkey put some infantry and spotters on the ground — highly trained “boots” that are literally positioned a few kilometers away on its side of the border?
Well, Turkish President Erdogan just explained his government’s reluctance quite succinctly, as reported by Bloomberg on Saturday:

For us, ISIL and the (Kurdish) PKK are the same,” Erdogan said in televised remarks today in Istanbul.

And that’s literally true because from Turkey’s vantage point the Kobani showdown is a case of terrorist-on-terrorist. ........