Kobani Key To US Strategy Against Islamic State
The Obama administration has declared Kobani a humanitarian disaster, but not a factor in the overall strategy to defeat the Islamic State group.
"Kobani
does not define the strategy of the coalition with respect to Daesh,"
Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Cairo earlier this week,
using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. "Kobani is one
community, and it's a tragedy what is happening there, and we don't
diminish that." But, Kerry said, the primary U.S. military focus is in
neighboring Iraq.
But this week, the U.S. dramatically upped its
air power strikes against IS in and around Kobani, including 59 strikes
over the last four days alone, as of Friday. Several hundred IS fighters
were killed, the Pentagon said.Now, the U.S. cannot afford to lose Kobani, said Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria. That means the city's fate is tied, in part at least, to the success of the U.S.-led strategy against the Islamic State.
"The
most important thing about Kobani now is that if it falls to the
Islamic State, it would be seen as a defeat for the Americans, and thus
would touch on the credibility of the American policy to contain and
degrade the Islamic State," said Ford, now at the Middle East Institute
in Washington.
"We have made a real effort to help the defenders
in Kobani by targeting various Islamic State assets," he said. "And if
it falls nonetheless, then it makes it looks like the U.S. military
couldn't contain that, and that's how it would be seen in the region."Said Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon's spokesman: "We never said Kobani didn't matter." Here is a look at why it does:
A KURDISH APPEAL
Despite
the barrage of airstrikes, the U.S. so far has been unable to help
Kurdish defenders break the siege. The U.S. and its allies have said
that airstrikes alone will not be enough to beat back the extremists.
That requires ground troops, both in Syria and Iraq.
Since
President Barack Obama is adamant that American troops will not join
the fight on the ground, the U.S. has been working to help arm, equip
and revamp training programs for national and Kurdish Peshmerga security
forces in Iraq and moderate rebel fighters in Syria. The Peshmerga and
other Kurdish forces have been key in containing — if not defeating — IS
across much of northern Iraq. Making sure they keep up that front is a
top priority for the U.S.
Irbil, the Kurdish capital in Iraq,
asked the Obama administration to increase airstrikes in Kobani, said
Mahma Khalil, a Kurdish lawmaker from northern Iraq. While there's no
formal link between the government in Irbil and the Kurdish population
in Syria, both dream of an independent nation for ethnic Kurds."The current level of airstrikes are not enough to stop the terrorists from seizing Kobani," Khalil said this week. "The U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Kobani and Iraq should be accelerated more and more" to avoid the extremists from reclaiming areas they were pushed from earlier this summer, he said.
A U.S. military official confirmed Khalil's account and noted that maintaining good relations with Irbil is an important part of Washington's strategy against the Islamic militants. The official was not authorized to discuss the diplomatic issue by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Publicly, the Pentagon and State Department say the reasons for the increased airstrikes at Kobani are twofold: The city has become an easier target in recent days due to an influx of Islamic State fighters who have gathered there. And the strikes serve as a humanitarian relief mission to protect the city while Kurdish fighters reorganize their front.
WHERE'S TURKEY?
Kobani
also has become a symbol of Turkey's reluctance to fight the Islamic
State — even in a city right across its border. It is an ongoing example
of the difficulty of uniting regional enemies against a common threat,
and has created a messy intersection of U.S. military and diplomatic
interests.
If Kobani falls,
the Islamic extremists will have a border way-station for militants to
slip in and out of Turkey. Already, Turkey is grappling with how to
tighten its borders against thousands of foreign fighters, mostly from
Western and Eastern European nations, who have traveled through Turkey
to join the insurgency.
The
U.S. has tried for months to coax Turkey into providing more assistance,
including border security, to the global coalition against the Islamic
State group. So far, Turkey has provided sanctuary to an estimated
200,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees, and recently agreed to train and
equip moderate Syrian rebel fighters trying to remove Syrian President
Bashar Assad from power.
But
Turkey is not expected to send troops or aid to the Kurdish fighters who
are defending Kobani due to a decades-long dispute it has waged against
a Kurdish guerrilla group linked to the city's defenders. The fighters
in Kobani are affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which
both Turkey and the U.S. consider a terrorist organization.
Turkey
has openly said it is blocking Turkish Kurds from joining the fight in
Kobani. And neither Turkey nor the Syrian Kurds are enthusiastic about
joining ranks if Turkey sends army troops to Kobani.
Further
complicating the issue, the U.S. said it has begun talking directly to
the Kurdish fighters' political wing in Kobani — a diplomatic move that
could stretch tensions with Turkey even farther.
A Turkish government official on Friday said Ankara does not oppose action that is intended to weaken IS.
"Turkey
is part of the coalition against ISIL," said the official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public
statements.
THE PROPAGANDA BATTLE FOR KOBANI
The
U.S. isn't sure why IS is fighting so hard for control of Kobani, a
city with few resources and far removed from any capital. But like the
U.S. with Kobani, a loss to a ragtag group of Kurdish fighters would be a
propaganda loss for IS.
Much
of the daily fighting in Kobani is caught on camera, where TV crews and
photographers on the Turkish side of the border have captivated the
world's attention with searing pictures of refugees, black plumes of
smoke from explosions, and the sounds of firefights on the city's
streets. In video after video, refugees just across the border can be
seen and heard cheering as U.S. airstrikes pound the extremists.
IS
has published pictures of its militants closing in on Kobani, aiming
"to appear strong, undeterred, and unharmed by the strikes," said Rita
Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence group, which monitors jihadist
networks online. As recently as last week, in pictures and Tweets, the
militants' supporters declared Kobani as theirs, and changed the city's
name to Ayn al-Islam, or Spring of Islam. But the online jeering has
quieted considerably after the airstrikes of the last several days.
The
Islamic State relies on its global online propaganda machine, run
largely by supporters far from the battle, to entice fighters, funding
and other aid to the front. If the militants' victories begin to ebb in
such a public forum, U.S. officials believe, so too will their lines of
support. That alone makes the battle for Kobani a must-win fight for the
U.S. strategy.
And that is not lost on Washington. "What makes Kobani significant is the fact that ISIL wants it," Kirby said.
No comments:
Post a Comment