UN launches urgent appeal for defense of Kobane

By James Reinl

NEW YORK – The UN has launched an urgent appeal for assistance to Kurdish forces in the north Syrian town of Kobane, where an advance by Islamic State (IS) fighters threatens to become the scene of the group’s latest sectarian massacre.

“There were 400,000 inhabitants. They are all Kurds. They have been defending themselves with great courage. But they are now very close to not being able to do so,” warned Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s special envoy to Syria.

“They are fighting with normal weapons, whereas the ISIS has got tanks and mortars. The international community needs to defend them. The international community cannot sustain another city falling under ISIS.”

The US-led coalition carried out sustained airstrikes around Kobane on Tuesday against IS, a sectarian Sunni militia that is also known as ISIS and ISIL. Reports from Kobane suggest the IS advance was temporarily halted.

Earlier Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Kobane was “about to fall”. But he faced widening protests from Turkish Kurds over his refusal to allow military support to the border town, despite an authorisation from Turkey’s parliament.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said US airstrikes had destroyed IS armoured vehicles and other military hardware around Kobane and said the US was “very concerned about the safety of innocent civilians” in the area.

“Muslim governments in the region are threatened by ISIL,” he told journalists on Tuesday. “Having this violence on their doorstep is … certainly not in the best interest of Turkey.”

As many as 180,000 people, mostly Syrian Kurds, fled into Turkey from the Kobane area after the IS advance. Before the offensive, Kobane, known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, sheltered refugees from a civil war that has claimed more than 191,000 lives since March 2011.

US President Barack Obama says IS can be routed with airstrikes and by arming Kurds, Iraqis and moderate Syrian opposition fighters as ground forces. Critics say he over-depends on air power, lacks reliable allies and has no solution to Syria’s civil war.

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/08102014