Reinforcements Enter Besieged Syrian Town via Turkey, Raising Hopes

By Anne Barnard, The New York Times

29 October 2014

As the first contingents of Iraqi Kurdish soldiers and Syrian rebel fighters crossed throughTurkey to enter the beleaguered Syrian town of Kobani on Wednesday, officials in Kobani hailed their arrival, saying they hoped it heralded a more cooperative international effort to fight Islamic State jihadists.

Syrian Kurdish leaders from Kobani said the small numbers of fighters so far were not enough to turn the tide — just a few dozen Free Syrian Army rebels, followed by about 150 Iraqi Kurdish pesh merga fighters bearing badly needed arms and ammunition.

But the reinforcements were the first Turkey had allowed to cross through into Syria after weeks of tense diplomacy. And Syrian Kurdish officials in Kobani expressed hope that it meant Turkey and the United States were beginning to resolve their differences over how to fight the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

As it continued a campaign of airstrikes against the Islamic State fighters besieging Kobani, the United States for weeks pressed Turkey, a NATO ally, to do more. But Turkey had held out for stronger American action to oust President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, and it has strong reservations about helping Kurdish communities in Syria and Iraq that are aligned with its own restive Kurdish population.

Analysts said it was significant that Turkey had relented. But they cautioned that the reinforcements on Wednesday were just a small boost to one ad hoc effort amid a complex regional conflict.

“The whole war effort in Syria and Iraq is really a work in progress,” said Soner Cagaptay, a Turkish political analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It’s not as if we have a grand strategy and steps are being implemented. They are reacting to events on the ground.”

While the influx lifted spirits in Kobani, analysts also noted that the battle there, despite its high profile, was not the most strategically important one against the Islamic State, which has managed to gain and hold territory in several areas despite international airstrikes.

Even as the new fighters headed for Kobani, the jihadists killed dozens of Iraqi Sunnis west of Baghdad and opened a new offensive on a natural gas field near the Syrian city of Homs.

American-led airstrikes continued Wednesday against the militants who have dug into about a third of Kobani, but the strikes have been limited in the past two days, partly because much of the fighting has been street to street. The militants had already swept into hundreds of villages in the Kobani district, facing little international threat, before reaching the town itself.

Asked on Wednesday night whether the Kurdish defenders could hold the city, Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, told CNN, “With the airstrikes and with potential pesh merga reinforcements, I think the potential there is for it to be successful.”

Gen. Hussein Mansour Karam, a pesh merga commander who helped assemble the expeditionary force from Iraqi Kurdistan, said the fighters who had traveled by land through Turkey had arrived Wednesday in Kobani. Those who had traveled by air and arrived in Turkey earlier were still at an outpost on the Turkish side of the border on Wednesday night, he said.

Commanders said they had chosen soldiers with experience in heavy weaponry and had drawn from units affiliated with both of the major political parties in Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan — apparently a political gesture intended to send a message that the whole of Iraqi Kurdistan was supportive of the Kobani resistance.

But the general demurred when asked whether he thought more pesh merga fighters would be deployed to Kobani.

“So far, the Ministry of Pesh Merga has not asked me to prepare more fighters for Kobani,” he said, adding that “this limited number of fighters” would participate for now.

A senior American military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that with the battle “essentially at a stalemate,” every bit helped.

“In the long term, logistics wins wars, and the flow of equipment and fighters is going to be vital,” he said. “The tide may be turning to the Kurds, slowly.”

The official added: “Every step forward with Turkish cooperation is helpful. It’s a complex calculus of national interests.”

While Turkey has deepening ties to Iraqi Kurdistan, its long history of conflict with Kurds means “it is significant to allow a Kurdish entity to move Kurdish sovereign forces across an international border through Turkey,” said Yezid Sayigh, a military analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

“But they’re doing it cautiously,” Mr. Sayigh added, “giving themselves a chance to go either way, expand it as a bridgehead or limit it. They haven’t finished playing their moves. That’s the sort of subtle dance that’s going on with the U.S.A.”

He said the aid to Kobani was mainly “public relations,” while the real diplomatic tussle continued. Turkey wants to create a buffer zone in Syria and return refugees, but only with the participation of the United States and other nations. Mr. Sayigh said the government resented what it saw as American pressure to “take on something that the U.S. itself isn’t willing to.”

Mr. Cagaptay, the Turkish analyst, said the range of forces now in Kobani was striking. It incorporates Syrian Arab insurgents, the Iraqi Kurds, and local Kurdish fighters from the Y.P.G., a militia affiliated with Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., movement.

“That’s huge, the first time this has happened,” he said. “This builds up a working relationship between these three groups, so if the goal is to build a native, indigenous boots-on-the-ground strategy, this could be the beginning.”

Featured Image: Kurds in Viransehir, Turkey, greeting Iraqi Kurdish pesh merga convoys as fighters passed through on their way to the besieged Syrian town of Kobani. Copyright 2014, Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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