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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Inside Kobani, Kurds doggedly face Islamic State
2014-12-05
[IsraelTimes] The men and women of Kobani call one another heval ? Kurdish for ?comrade? ? and fight with revolutionary conviction, vowing to liberate what they regard as Kurdish land from Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group krazed killers.

Amid the wasteland and destroyed buildings, a sense of camaraderie has developed among the town?s defenders who have for more than two months doggedly fought off the advances by the murderous Moslems.

Often, members of the same family can be found on the front lines.

Nineteen-year-old Shida?s father was a fighter before her. After he was killed, she gave up hopes of becoming an artist and decided she must follow in his footsteps to honor his example. She says her mother supports her decision. One of her six brothers is also fighting; the rest of her siblings are living in Turkey.

?I will not allow the enemy to take away my land and its soil,? she said. ?I will not leave my land.?

An exclusive report shot by videojournalist Jake Simkin who spent a week inside Kobani late last month offered a rare, in-depth glimpse of the men and women fighting to expel the IS Death Eaters from Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish town in northern Syria by the Turkish border.

Backed by small numbers of Iraqi peshmerga forces and Free Syrian Army
... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund...
rebels, the Kurdish fighters, whose political founders espouse a firm left-wing ideology, are locked in fierce battles to push back the Islamic State group, which swept into the town in mid-September.

In a surprising display of resilience, the Kurdish fighters in the frontier town have held out against the more experienced jihadis more than two months into the krazed killers? offensive, hanging on to their territory against all expectations.

?We are fighting for freedom,? said a Kurdish sniper who goes under the nickname Zinar, Kurdish for ?The Rock.?

?Freedom isn?t something you can easily get or something that someone just gives to you,? he said. ?Freedom is only achieved when you go out and get it yourself.?

The krazed killers? advance was part of the Islamic State group?s blitz this year that overran large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq. Kobani, once a town of about 50,000 people but now virtually deserted except for the fighters, has seen some of the fiercest urban warfare in the Syrian civil war, now in its fourth year.

Abu Layla, commander of a Free Syrian Army-linked group in Kobani called Shams al-Shamal (Sun of the North) Brigade, said he is proud of what the FSA and the Kurdish fighters have achieved together in Kobani so far.

Their alliance is called ?Burkhan al Furat,? which translates as Volcano of the Euphrates.

Abu Layla?s group has over a hundred fighters, mostly ethnic Arabs and Turkmens from Abu Layla?s hometown of Minbej.

He said he is not fighting for the Kurds, Arabs or Turkmens, or for Christians or Moslems.

?I?m fighting for a free democratic Syria, not an Islamic Syria but a free democratic Syria,? he said.

He has not lost sight of the real goal of the rebels, which is toppling Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
. But he says the priority now is to get rid of the Islamic State group.

After that, taking down Assad ?will be easy for us, if we have support.?
Posted by:trailing wife

#9  Sir Lindley faced being a fool
By linking animals and tools.
He endangered his life
When our own "trailing wife"
Queried him in a voice rather cool.
Posted by: Canuckistan sniper   2014-12-05 22:28  

#8  Animals? Do explain, Sir Lindley, as I'm clearly a bit slow this evening.
Posted by: trailing wife   2014-12-05 20:06  

#7  And who said that animals could not use tools?
Posted by: Sir Lindley   2014-12-05 19:48  

#6  I wouldn't worry about ammunition quite yet Ebbo, the Kurds are bleeding ISIS dry in Kobani. Long as their doing that they will be supplied. The thing the Pershmerga need to worry about is Turkey coming over that border and crushing them at the moment of victory. I certainly hope their keeping an eye on those troop deployments of the Turks.
Posted by: Charles   2014-12-05 19:39  

#5  Excellent fire discipline. We aimed, single shots fired at specific targets. Thanks Ebbo.
Posted by: Besoeker   2014-12-05 12:33  

#4  We had a good kill ratio in Nam. When I was in Hanoi there were few commies my age.
Posted by: bman   2014-12-05 11:07  

#3  Very true TW. Historically, many grand military operations failed due to exhausted resources.

Urban warfare. Kurdish snipers duels with ISIS snipers.



Posted by: Ebbomosh Hupemp2664   2014-12-05 10:16  

#2  With a kill ratio of 1:10 and up to 1:35, ISIS just can not win.

...so long as the bullets continue to flow in, anyway..
Posted by: trailing wife   2014-12-05 08:30  

#1  Yesterday in Kobane one kurdish fighter was filled and about 35 ISIS was killed. That is a 1:35 kill ratio. And that ration occurs almost daily.

That is not counting the dead from airstrikes. Kurds call dead from air strikes, "bodies discovered", which are not included in their kills.

With a kill ratio of 1:10 and up to 1:35, ISIS just can not win.
Posted by: Ebbomosh Hupemp2664   2014-12-05 00:59  

00:00