Up to 700 trapped in Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane, UN says

[EC]

The UN special envoy to Syria has warned that up to 700 people, mainly elderly, are still trapped in the Syrian border town of Kobane.

Staffan de Mistura also urged Turkey to allow in volunteers to Syria to defend the town from Islamic State militants.

There are reports that IS has taken control of the Kurdish headquarters in the town, but this has been denied by a Syrian Kurdish official there.

Kobane has been a major battleground for IS and the Kurds for three weeks.

The fighting has forced hundreds of thousands of Syrians, mainly Kurds, to flee into neighbouring Turkey, which has so far ruled out any ground operation on its own against IS.
Smoke rises after strikes from the US-led coalition in the Syrian town of Kobane on 10 October 2014. Kurdish sources said four coalition air strikes hit the town in just 30 minutes

Kurdish forces, who are being helped by US-led coalition strikes against IS, say they urgently need more weapons and ammunition to push back the militants' advance in the town.

The US Central Command (Centcom) said that US fighter jets alongside UAE and Saudi Arabian military aircraft carried out fresh airstrikes on Thursday and Friday around the southeast of Kobane and in Deir al-Zour, in eastern Syria, destroying several IS vehicles and training facilities.

Kurdish sources inside Kobane told the BBC that four air strikes hit the western side of the town in one half-hour period.
'No Srebrenica'

Except for one narrow entry and exit point, Mr de Mistura said Kobane was "literally surrounded" by IS, with hundreds of mainly elderly civilians still inside the city centre and another 10-13,000 gathered nearby, AFP reports.

He said the civilians would "most likely be massacred'' if the town fell to IS, warning that the UN did not want to see another Srebrenica - where thousands of Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995 during the Bosnian conflict.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29570734

[alicewonders]

This is so distressing to hear about.  I heard that Kobani is an important area for Assad due to oil?  I don't know where this can all end, but I do not think it's going to end well. 

[Bigun]

The whole thing makes me sick and if you knew the real history of the Kurdish people and how we have mistreated them over the years it would make you sick as well!

[alicewonders]

The whole thing makes me sick and if you knew the real history of the Kurdish people and how we have mistreated them over the years it would make you sick as well!

They seem like the only ones willing to put up a fight.

[EC]

They seem like the only ones willing to put up a fight.

They have had a lot of practice. Been the targets of everyone in the region pretty much forever. Lot of the various Christian communities are fighting as well. Even Yazadi's are getting dispensations to fight, and the Assyrian Christians don't need that formality and get on well (mostly) with the Kurds anyway.

Turkey is the big problem. Despite being a NATO member, they have the law on their side. They are duty bound to come to the assistance of any member of NATO who has been attacked, which is not the case here. And since they fear Assad and passionately loathe the Kurds, they are more than happy to sit on their hands for a while. I got the impression they are waiting for the three sides to more or less wipe each other out, then move in themselves as part of the Ottoman resurgence.

[alicewonders]

It's all very confusing to me.  There are so many different factions and it seems that no one is aligned with anyone else  - and ISIS just seems to be getting stronger and stronger with some very strategic attacks. 

I keep getting this gut feeling that Obama's main goal in all of this is to topple Assad, and that he really isn't that concerned with ISIS and what they are doing.

[EC]

That's the Middle East for you! Plans inside plans, wheels inside wheels. 

As far as the Worm's plans go - you'll note that it's pretty much only the USA doing air strikes in Syria. The rest of us in the West are pretty much sticking to assisting the Kurds and the Iraqis.

Now, I am not going to insult the American pilots flying the missions in Syria. They got a hard job and most of them pull it off so well they make it look easy. Ask them to drop a bomb from 40k feet onto a specific dime and that dime is history - IF they are given accurate targeting information. That has been a weakness going back to WW1, where the joke in the trenches was: "When the Tommies fire, the Huns duck. When the Huns fire, the Tommies duck. When the Yanks fire, EVERYONE ducks." 

[alicewonders]

That's the Middle East for you! Plans inside plans, wheels inside wheels. 

As far as the Worm's plans go - you'll note that it's pretty much only the USA doing air strikes in Syria. The rest of us in the West are pretty much sticking to assisting the Kurds and the Iraqis.

Now, I am not going to insult the American pilots flying the missions in Syria. They got a hard job and most of them pull it off so well they make it look easy. Ask them to drop a bomb from 40k feet onto a specific dime and that dime is history - IF they are given accurate targeting information. That has been a weakness going back to WW1, where the joke in the trenches was: "When the Tommies fire, the Huns duck. When the Huns fire, the Tommies duck. When the Yanks fire, EVERYONE ducks." 

I read that our air strikes on "eminent threat" Khorosan only resulted in a few deaths of Khorosan members - that most of what we bombed was empty buildings.  This was while - as you said - most of the rest of the world was concentrating on helping the Kurds and others in Iraq.  If I said what I really think about that - people would think I was crazy. 

[truth_seeker]

Our glorious Nobel Prize for Peace winner seems incapable of engaging meaningful efforts by the international community, to save lives.

[SPQR]

It's all very confusing to me.  There are so many different factions and it seems that no one is aligned with anyone else  - and ISIS just seems to be getting stronger and stronger with some very strategic attacks. 

.

Blame Obama and his incompetent defense plan and foreign affairs. It seems that they do not know how to handle it. In order to defeat ISIS, you will need around the clock bombing campaigns on strategic targets. When Turkish officials can see ISIS flags within spitting distance of their border there is a problem. Time to bring back Henry Kissenger from retirement.