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Why Kobane is not Erbil
A critical Kurdish city on the Syrian-Turkish border may be about to fall to the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) after a three-week siege that has pitted lightly armed Kurdish YPG rebels against a jihadist onslaught that includes tanks and artillery. Despite US airstrikes along the Turkish border with Syria aimed at disrupting the jihadist advance, ISIS has continued its push toward Kobane. Kobane is a major border crossing, and a useful potential asset for ISIS. By taking the city, the jihadists would be able to travel almost uninterrupted from Aleppo to the border with Iraq. And controlling such an important border crossing would prop ISIS' bottom line and deepen the group's control over its so-called caliphate. "Seizing border crossings, controlling trade, aid shipments, and smuggling will help Islamic State control society and stabilize their rule," Aron Lund, editor of Syria in Crisis, told Bloomberg Businessweek. The latest reports place ISIS militants in key mountain positions surrounding the city. At the same time, ISIS fighters are within a mile from Kobane's center as the siege has turned into a building-to-building street-fight. Despite Kobane's importance, little in terms of concrete help has been given to the Kurdish fighters defending the city. The US carried out airstrikes on Sept. 24 near the Turkish border in an effort to blunt ISIS's advance — a move that did little to stop the jihadists. There is no shortage of potential US and coalition targets surrounding Kobane. But there is a lack of reliable human intelligence that would make the strikes as effective as possible. The US simply doesn't have the same kind of on-the-ground intelligence presence and capabilities in Syria that it has in neighboring Iraq. The success of the airstrikes in Iraqi Kurdistan owed in part to the mission being conducted in close coordination with US aerial intelligence — American attacks were assisted using coordinates of enemy positions supplied by the Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi Security Forces. The US lacks those kinds of partnerships in Syria, and the resulting shortage of intelligence is a major strategic shortcoming — something that may plague the coalition's overall goal of disrupting and destroying ISIS' network within Syria. Posted by: Pappy 2014-10-08 |
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