[Peace-discuss] AP: Kurds describe fierce battles on streets of Kobani

Mon Oct 13 10:30:23 EDT 2014

This AP report says that some Kurdish fighters are succeeding in sneaking
across the border from Turkey to join (and re-join) the fight to save
Kobane from ISIS.

That suggests to me that "small" actions by Turkey in terms of letting more
Kurdish fighters through could have a decisive impact.

We're currently at 6,800. Let's make it 10,000.

Obama: Press Turkey to Stop Massacre of Syrian Kurds
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/obama-press-turkey-to?source=c.url&r_by=1135580

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AP: Kurds describe fierce battles on streets of Kobani
Ryan Lucas | October 12, 2014 02:40 PM EST
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20141012/syria-battle-of-kobani/

SURUC, Turkey (AP) — The shells were already roaring down on the Kurdish
fighters from the hill above Kobani when more than 30 Islamic State
militants backed by snipers and pickups mounted with heavy machine guns
began their assault across the dusty fields.

Holed up in an industrial area of squat, concrete buildings on Kobani's
eastern edges, the outgunned Kurds could do little to repel the attack,
recalled Dalil Boras, one of the defenders during the Oct. 6 assault. The
Islamic State group's firepower proved too much, so the Kurds withdrew
through the gray streets to a tree-lined park, ceding a foothold in the
town to the extremist fighters, who promptly raised two black flags over
their newly conquered territory.

A week later, the Kurdish men and women of the People's Protection Units,
or YPG, are still holding out, if barely, with a helping hand from more
than 20 airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State
positions.

They have been battered by tanks shells and mortars, and picked off by
snipers using American-made rifles. They have no answer for the heavy
weapons that Islamic State fighters have looted from Iraqi and Syrian army
bases. And while they are slowly yielding ground, they so far have
prevented the town from being overrun, defending it zealously with little
more than light weapons, booby-traps and a fervent belief in their cause.

Along the way, the predominantly Kurdish town along Syria's border with
Turkey has been transformed from a dusty backwater into a symbol of
resistance for Kurds around the world. It also has grabbed the
international media spotlight, which has helped turn the defense of Kobani
into a very public test for the American-led international effort to roll
back and ultimately destroy the Islamic State group.

The battle itself is now playing out in Kobani's streets and alleyways — a
fight being watched by scores of Syrian and Turkish Kurds, as well as
dozens of journalists, through binoculars from hilltops and farms just
across the border in Turkey.

>From that vantage point, the town spreads out among the rocky hills and
brown fields just beyond the frontier. Plumes of black smoke billow over
the low-slung skyline. The occasional thud of mortar shells mixes with the
clatter of heavy machine guns and assault rifles.

Kurdish fighters and civilians who have recently fled describe a much
grittier scene inside the town. Both of the warring sides have knocked
holes in walls to move between buildings — a tactic employed in urban
fighting for decades. On cross streets, blankets have been hung to limit
exposure to snipers. Rubble litters the streets. Smoke hangs in the air.
The few remaining civilians have sought shelter in basements.

Boras, a short and stocky 19-year-old dressed in dusty black jeans and a
black T-shirt, explained how Kurdish fighters are organized into small
groups of sometimes as few as five or six people, who stake out positions
on the front lines. Teams with rocket-propelled grenades and
Russian-designed machine guns known here as "Doshkas" have taken up
positions in the upper stories of some buildings to maximize the Kurds'
limited firepower.

"We are communicating with walkie-talkies," Boras said recently during a
three-day break from the fight. "We tell them on our walkie-talkie that
they're attacking and we throw a red smoke bomb to show the position of the
attack, and then the machine guns and RPGs provide support."

Kurdish men and women fighters spread out on the various fronts are mainly
armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades. They carry backpacks
with ammunition, biscuits and canned beans and hummus, and when they run
low they call into headquarters.

"We have special words for martyrs, wounded, ammunition and food on the
walkie-talkie," Boras said. They frequently switch frequencies to avoid
being spied on over the airwaves.

Since the Islamic State group first moved into Kobani's eastern districts
on Oct. 6, the fighting has developed a familiar rhythm, the Kurds say: The
extremists own the day, while the Kurdish forces rule after sundown when
the Islamic State's heavy weapons can't effectively target Kurdish
positions.

"At night, we go out on missions to hunt them down. During the day they put
pressure on us," said Boras. "We watch during the day to see where they
are. And then if there's a street that needs it, we plant roadside bombs to
hit them with during the day."

With limited resources, the Kurds have had to improvise. Boras recalled on
one occasion packing a truck tire with explosives and then rolling it down
the hill toward Islamic State fighters, destroying a machine gun post.

As the fighting has ground down in the thick of the town, the front lines
in some places have narrowed to just a few meters (yards), said Aladeen Ali
Kor, a Kobani policeman now volunteering in a refugee camp in the Turkish
town of Suruc while he recovers from a shrapnel wound to the back of his
neck.

"There are some places where you're basically across the street from them.
Like from here to the back of the gas station there," he said, pointing
across the busy main road in Suruc. "Fighters on both sides yell and taunt
each other. We say we'll never let you in. They yell at us that they'll
never let us out alive."

Kor, a stout 36-year-old with a tightly-cropped brown beard flecked with
gray, said most of the Islamic State fighters captured by the YPG are
Syrian, although there are also many Turks, Chechens and Yemenis mixed in
among them.

At one point, he pulled back the white hand towel rolled up on his neck to
show the three stitches and swollen wound. He was out on a patrol, he said,
when a mortar round slammed into a building nearby, followed by a second
that hit the street.

"Another guy was wounded in the leg and belly, and two guys were killed,"
he said. "I didn't pass out, but I was dazed. Friends took me to an
ambulance. There was blood everywhere."

Most of Kobani's wounded are brought to the hospital in Suruc. Two
emergency room nurses taking a short break recounted the chaos of the past
few weeks.

"We usually see 25-30 wounded a day. They are serious injuries. Mostly from
gunshots and shrapnel," said one of the nurses who only identified himself
as Mehmet. The nurses estimated that 70 percent of the wounded are
fighters, while the rest are civilians.

For now at least, the heart of Kobani remains in Kurdish hands, although
their grip appears tenuous at best. With so much attention on the town,
neither side can relent. Activists say the Islamic State group has rushed
in reinforcements, while small numbers of Kurds continue to sneak across
the border to join the fight.

One of them is Boras. Reached by telephone late Saturday night, he said he
had slipped back into Kobani and returned to the front. Having already lost
his father and a brother fighting the Islamic State, he said he sees no
alternative but to make his stand there.

"Either Kobani will fall and I will die, or we will win," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Mohammed Rasool contributed to this report.

___

Follow Ryan Lucas on Twitter at www.twitter.com/relucasz .

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Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1
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