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Iraqi Kurds join fight to break Islamic State siege on Syrian town Iraqi Kurds join fight to break Islamic State siege on Syrian town
(about 4 hours later)
ISTANBUL — Fighters from Iraq’s Kurdish region crossed into Syria on Thursday to join other reinforcements seeking to turn back an Islamic State siege that has become a key stand in the international showdown against the militants. ISTANBUL — A delegation of 10 Iraqi Kurdish fighters crossed into the embattled Syrian border town of Kobane on Thursday, drawing an angry response from the Syrian government, which blamed Turkey for permitting the first public deployment of foreign troops in Syria since the war there began.
The battle for Kobane — within sight of the Turkish border — also has displayed the complex regional politics at play within the U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State. The Kurdish peshmerga delegation crossed back into Turkey at nightfall after discussing with Syrian Kurds details of the expected deployment of a larger force of about 150 who were dispatched from Iraq to help the Syrian Kurds battle Islamic State militants for control of the town, Kurdish activists said.
Kobane has been defended for more than a month by Syrian Kurds, but it took a series of intense negotiations with Turkish and Kurdish officials to finally open a channel for help. The obscure little town has no strategic significance but has emerged as an important early test of the U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State in Syria. As the battles there raged within sight of TV cameras on the Turkish border and Kurds complained that they were being ignored, Kobane became the chief focus of the airstrikes.
The first group of Iraqi Kurdish fighters, known as peshmerga, moved across the border to reach Kobane, activist said. About 150 peshmerga — carrying anti-tank weapons and other arms — have amassed in Turkey in preparation for entering Kobane. U.S. warplanes have since conducted multiple bombing raids against Islamic State positions in and around the town, helping the Kurds stave off what had appeared to be imminent defeat.
A Kobane-based activist, Mustafa Bali, told the Associated Press that the pesh merga will move into the town in waves because the border crossing point has been targeted by Islamic State fighters. The small deployment is unlikely to herald a major shift on the ground, but it was a symbolically important moment for Kurds across the region, signifying an internationally sanctioned cross-border alliance that some hope will advance their dreams of being united as a nation.
On Wednesday, a group of 52 Syrian rebels — who have been fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad — arrived in Kobane as part of a battlefield shift to confront the Islamic State. “The peshmerga won’t change the military balance,” said Kurdish activist Barzan Iso, speaking from the Turkish border. “But it shows that Kurds are not alone, and that we are united in the fight against terrorism and the Islamic State.”
The rebel presence in Kobane was encouraged by Turkey, which wants the fight against the Islamic State to include boosted international support for the anti-Assad forces. The peshmerga presence may make it easier for the United States to airdrop weapons to the beleaguered Kurds, as it did last week, despite objections from Turkey. It also is expected to ease Turkey’s concerns about U.S. efforts to aid the Syrian Kurds because it has good relations with Iraq’s Kurds and has welcomed the arrival of the peshmerga.
While the numbers of reinforcements are small, their movement into Kobane could open an important route for further aid to the town’s defenders — who remain outgunned despite being aided by intensified U.S. airstrikes. Although the numbers are small, this is the first time foreign troops have been deployed publicly to Syria since the war began. Syria expressed fury at the deployment and accused Turkey of violating its border “by allowing foreign forces and terrorist elements . . . to cross into Syrian territories.”
U.S. forces carried out 10 airstrikes on Islamic State targets near Kobane since Wednesday, U.S. Central Command said. By “terrorist elements,” Syria was apparently referring to a contingent of about 50 Free Syrian Army fighters who crossed into Kobane on Wednesday ahead of the peshmerga, part of a wider, four-way deal reached between Turkey, the government of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, the Syrian Kurds and the United States to reinforce the Kobane defenders.
The heavy weapons brought by the Iraqi Kurds also could provide critical firepower against Islamic State tanks and armored vehicles, which have been looted during its advances across Syria and Iraq. Syria, however, singled out Turkey for responsibility, calling its behavior “disgraceful.”
The Syrian Kurds in Kobane had initially balked at accepting reinforcements from rival Iraqi Kurds but relented, said Idris Naasan, a spokesman for the self-styled Kurdish government in Kobane. “Once again, Turkey proves real its conspiratorial role, premeditated intentions and flagrant intervention in Syria’s affairs,” said a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry and carried by the official Syrian Arab News Agency.
“This will give legality to the fighters in Kobane, and also the pesh merga will bring us heavy weapons,” said Naasan, speaking from the nearby Turkish border town of Suruc. The statement also warned that Syria will seek to “thwart the dangerous plot of the Turkish government.” Syria issues almost-daily statements attacking Turkey, which backs the three-year-old rebellion against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Turkey, meanwhile, would prefer that Syrian rebels and Iraqi Kurds control Kobane in the event that the Islamic State advance is thwarted. The Syrian response underscored how complicated the effort to save Kobane has become.
NATO-member Turkey is wary about encouraging further collaboration among the region’s Kurds — whose ethnic homeland stretches across four nations — as part of the wider fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Turkey has faced an insurgency by its Kurdish population since the 1980s, and the group battling the Islamic State in Kobane is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is behind the unrest in Turkey. The People’s Democratic Party, or PYD, to which the Kurds fighting in Kobane belong, is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which Turkey and the United States have designated as a terrorist organization. The PKK, in turn, has ties to the regime led by Assad, whose removal the United States and Turkey have sought.
Kobane lacks strategic significance, but gaining control of Kobane could provide a vital propaganda platform for the extremist group, which would have demonstrated that it could stand up to a concerted U.S. air campaign. The United States initially ignored the jihadist advance on Kobane, handing the Islamic State a key psychological boost, until it became clear that the town would fall without significant outside help. The Iraqi Kurds, however, have close relationships with Turkey and the United States and are affiliated with a different Syrian Kurdish faction, the Kurdish National Council, which has close ties to the Iraqi Kurds and is at odds with the PYD over who should control Syrian areas of Kurdistan.
Intensified U.S.-led airstrikes have helped the Kurds hold the town, but a stalemate appears to have settled over the battlefield after the United States recently airdropped weapons to the Kurds. The more moderate, Iraqi-affiliated Kurdish faction backs the Syrian opposition and has accused the PYD of monopolizing power in Kurdish regions of Syria.
In an interview with the AP, the political adviser to Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban, slammed Turkey for “aggression” by allowing the Syrian rebels to cross into Kobane. The deployment of Iraqi peshmerga in Kobane may, therefore, herald a breakthrough in the long-running rift between the rival Syrian factions and open the door to a more unified Kurdish position on the Syria conflict that sits easier with the Turkish government.
Murphy reported from Washington. Turkey had been loath to aid a faction it regards as close to Assad and is hoping the reinforcements will bring Syria’s Kurds closer to the opposition. The government in Ankara had been widely accused of not doing more to aid the Kurds as the extremists bore down on Kobane. Turkey, however, says the PYD faction in Kobane rejected offers of help.