I/II.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/04/turkey-troops-isis-siege-kobani-refugees-rape-and-murder
Tales of torture, mutilation and rape as Isis targets key town of Kobani
Turkey orders troops to border but refuses to intervene to repel
brutal jihadist advance as refugees report atrocities
Catherine James in Mursitpinar
The Observer, Saturday 4 October 2014 18.20 BST
Turkish soldiers watch as smoke rises from a mortar shell falling in
the border city of Kobani, where battle is raging between Syrian Kurds
and Isis. Photograph: Burhan Ozbilici/AP
As Islamic State militants closed in on the besieged Syrian city of
Kobani on Saturday, Turkey lined up its soldiers near the border but
continued to refuse to intervene to repel the extremist advance.
On a day that should have been one of the happiest in the Muslim
calendar, the festival of Eid al-Adha, hundreds of Turks and refugee
Kurds spent the morning at the border with Syria, watching helplessly
as shells rained down on a city many once called home.
Turkish police appeared uneasy at the size of the crowd gathered near
a fragile border fence and fired teargas grenades to disperse them,
adding the crack of smaller explosions to the rumbling of the Isis
advance.
When the crowd formed again, armoured personnel carriers and water
cannon arrived, and riot police set to again. It was a mournfully
surreal scene, with the battle for Kobani as the backdrop for the
standoff with police.
Mostafa Kader was one of the restive crowd, grieving for an uncle who
had been beheaded by militants, and a young mother and her daughter
both brutally raped and murdered.
Kader fled 10 days ago, leaving his village, which lies 16km from
Kobani centre, in the small hours of the morning. He and his wife took
their five-year-old, their toddler and what little else they could
carry.
His uncle planned to join them but at the last minute changed his
mind, unable to leave a village that had been his home for more than
eight decades. The militants beheaded him, refugees arriving later
told Kader.
"He was 85 - he could not even lift a weapon," said the young father,
baffled by the brutality. Even more haunting were stories from his
wife's village, where the fleeing family found the bodies of her
sister and an eight-year-old niece lying in pools of blood.
"They had been raped, and their hearts were cut out of their chests
and left on top of the bodies," he said, struggling to hold back
tears. "I buried them with my own hands."
Four years of civil war, and the extreme brutality of Isis have left
him despairing for his country and family. "If I had known this was
what the future held, I would never have married. It would be better
to have died [fighting] in Kobani," he said.
After US air strikes on Isis positions overnight, the barrage of
shells seemed to have slowed slightly. Kurdish forces said they had
repelled an assault on the city's heart. The Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights, a UK-based group, said the coalition hit at least four
areas late on Friday on the southern and south-eastern fronts outside
Kobani, which is also known as Ain al-Arab.
The group said the strikes had destroyed some military material
belonging to Isis, which fired dozens of mortar rounds into the city
on Friday after advancing to its outskirts.
"We have been fighting for 20 days now. Isis swore they would
celebrate this Eid in the Kobani mosque, but we have prevented them,"
said Ismat Sheik Hasan, a commander of YPG, the Kurdish militia
defending Kobani. "One of the US air strikes yesterday damaged their
machine gun and another took out a cannon. We don't know if they hit
their tanks or not."
Despite the success of their overnight defence and the limited relief
provided by US air strikes, Hasan warned that the city's fate still
hung in the balance. His fighters were running low on supplies, and
promised aid had not arrived.
"We called the Turkish government for weapons and help. They said they
will not allow Isis to control Kobani, but until now we have not seen
them do anything."
Turkey has so far taken a back seat in efforts to tackle Isis in
Syria, in part because dozens of diplomats captured in Mosul were
being held hostage by the group. Their recent release potentially
frees Istanbul to take a more active role in the US-led coalition
against Islamic State, but the government has not unveiled any formal
plans.
On Thursday, Turkey's parliament voted to allow the deployment of
forces in Syria and Iraq to fight Isis. Ankara also warned it would
not hesitate to strike Isis jihadists if they attacked Turkish troops
in Syria, stationed at an enclave holding the tomb of Suleyman Shah.
Kurdish forces have long said that their most urgent need is more
munitions so they can press any advantage won by air strikes, and
these have been slow to arrive.
"We don't have heavy weapons and we don't have enough ammunition,"
said a spokesman. "I cannot say how many weapons we have - that is a
secret- but I can say that we don't have enough. Maybe they will enter
Kobani, and if they do, there will be a massacre."
Rami Abdelrahman, who runs the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights,
told the Reuters news agency that several hundred people had been
killed on both sides since the assault on Kobani started two weeks
ago.
But there are many more who would be at risk if Isis takes the city.
"In Kobani there are maybe 200,000 people, but I don't know exactly.
Some leave at night and go to the border then return later," YPG
commander Hasan said.
Thousands of Syrians who fled to the border have waited for days up
against the fence, determined to delay their official transition to
refugee status for as long as possible. More of them are now trickling
over.
Among those who finally decided that Kobani was on the brink was
Mukdad Bozan, travelling with his wife, a wailing baby and three
bedraggled older children. They fled their village more than two weeks
ago, shortly after the Isis assault on Kobani began and with little
time to spare.
"I saw some soldiers in their cars on the road, but we escaped before
they came to my village," Bozan said.
Still, they hoped the militants might yet be pushed back, and spent
days camped out in their car at the border hoping they would soon be
able to go home. They have no idea what the future holds now.
The last foreign journalist to leave Kobani on Saturday, the Swede
Joakim Medin, said Isis troops were within a few minutes' drive of the
centre, and that those who had chosen to stay, both men and women,
were preparing any weapons they had.
"When I was evacuated, around lunchtime today, I saw several civilians
armed with Kalashnikovs and any light weapons they could find," Medin
told the BBC. "They were guarding their homes, their neighbourhoods.
"People didn't really know what to expect. We were sitting just a few
hours ago having coffee with a family ... and we could see Isis vehicles
only two kilometres away. And obviously that means that they are
really, really close to Kobani."
II.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/04/us-jets-attack-isis-syrian-town-turkish-leader-rebukes-biden
US jets attack Isis as Biden apologises to Turkish president for
remarks about foreign fighters
Kurdish-held town of Kobani besieged by Isis fighters
Western Iraqi town of Kubaisa falls
Pakistani Taliban declares support for Isis
Isis warns US hostage Peter Kassig will be next to die
Isis video shows murder of Briton Alan Henning
Agencies
theguardian.com, Saturday 4 October 2014 19.50 BST
A Turkish soldier stands guard as Syrians from Kobani wait to enter
Turkey at the border crossing of Yumurtalik on Thursday. Photograph:
Burhan Ozbilici/AP
US-led war planes attacked Islamic State (Isis) targets around the
Syrian border town of Kobani overnight as the insurgents pressed their
assault against its Kurdish defenders, a monitoring group and
witnesses said.
On Friday, a video was released of the murder of a British aid
worker,Alan Henning, the fourth western hostage killed in recent
weeks, and warning that an American, Peter Kassig, would be killed
next.
On Saturday, fighting continued around Kobani while in Iraq, Isis
fighters captured the town of Kubaisa, in the western Anbar province,
two days after the fall of the nearby town of Hit. The fall of Kubaisa
jeopardises the Ain al-Asad military base, which allows Iraqi forces
to send troops and supplies to defend the Haditha dam further west.
Also on Saturday, the Pakistani Taliban declared allegiance to Islamic
State and ordered militants across the region to help the group in its
campaign to set up a global Islamic caliphate.
"Oh our brothers, we are proud of you in your victories. We are with
you in your happiness and your sorrow," Taliban spokesman Shahidullah
Shahid said in a statement sent to Reuters by email from an unknown
location.
"In these troubled days, we call for your patience and stability,
especially now that all your enemies are united against you. Please
put all your rivalries behind you ...
"All Muslims in the world have great expectations of you ... We are
with you, we will provide you with Mujahideen [fighters] and with
every possible support."
In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded and received an
apology from the US vice-president, Joe Biden, over comments in which
Biden said the Turkish leader had admitted Turkey had made mistakes by
allowing foreign fighters to cross into Syria.
Erdogan denied ever saying that and told reporters in Istanbul that
Biden "will be history for me if he has indeed used such expressions".
The White House said Biden spoke to Erdogan on Saturday "to clarify
comments", and said Biden apologised "for any implication" that Turkey
or other allies had intentionally supplied or helped in the growth of
the Isis group or other extremists in Syria.
Responding to questions following his speech at the Harvard Kennedy
School on Thursday, Biden described Erdogan as "an old friend" and
added: "He [Erdogan] said: 'You were right. We let too many people
through.' Now they're trying to seal their border."
Erdogan said: "I have never said to him that we had made a mistake,
never. If he did say this at Harvard then he has to apologise to us.
Foreign fighters have never entered Syria from our country. They may
come to our country as tourists and cross into Syria, but no one can
say that they cross in with their arms."
The killing of Henning, meanwhile, drew immediate condemnation from
western leaders. The British prime minister, David Cameron, said: "It
is senseless. It is completely unforgivable. Anyone in any doubt about
this organisation [Isis] can now see how truly repulsive it is and
barbaric it is.
"This is going to be our struggle now, that with others we must do
everything we can to defeat this organisation. We must take action
against it and we must find those responsible."
Previous coalition air strikes have failed to stop the insurgent
offensive on the predominantly Kurdish Kobani and outgunned Kurdish
fighters have put up a desperate fight as shells rained down on the
town over the past week. Isis shelled the town again on Saturday and
its Kurdish defenders said they were expecting a new assault.
Saturday's barrages were less intense than the previous day.
"Clashes continue now, they are shelling on all three fronts. They
tried to invade Kobani last night but they were repelled," senior
Kurdish official Asya Abdullah told Reuters from the town.
"We think they are planning to launch another big attack but YPG is
prepared to resist them," she said, referring to the Kurdish armed
group defending the town.
Sporadic heavy weapons fire could be heard east of Kobani, a Reuters
correspondent said.
An estimated 180,000 people have fled across the border into Turkey to
escape the bloodshed. Isis fighters have vowed to take Kobani within
days, saying they would pray in its mosques for Eid, which began on
Saturday.
Warplanes from the US-led coalition of western and regional forces
carried out raids in the countryside to the east and south of Kobani
on Friday night, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
said. One Islamic State vehicle was destroyed.
Smoke rises after a mortar shell explosion in the center of Kobani.
Photograph: Burhan Ozbilici/AP
Friday's shelling of Kobani was the heaviest yet, according to Parwer
Mohammed Ali, a translator with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party
(PYD) who is inside the town.
"Shelling normally calms at night because Isis is afraid of being
spotted by the jets but last night they continued the severe shelling
and tried to invade," Parwer said.
Around 90 shells had hit the town and at least two civilians were
killed in Friday's fighting. Three air strikes were audible from the
south and east of the town on Friday evening, Parwer said.
Isis stepped up its offensive close to the Turkish border last month,
seizing surrounding villages and advancing to within a few miles of
Kobani, which is also known as Ayn al-Arab. Its capture would allow
Isis to consolidate its hold on swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq.
Although there is little evidence of a firm alliance yet between IS
and al-Qaida-linked Taliban commanders, Isis activists have been
spotted recently in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, distributing
pamphlets praising the group, and Isis flags have been seen at street
rallies in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Swift offensives by Isis since June have sent shockwaves through Syria
and Iraq and attracted thousands of so-called "foreign fighters" to
their cause.
The US, with support from western and regional allies, has carried out
a series of bombing raids to halt the insurgents' rapid advance.
--
Peace Is Doable
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