Posted on 10/07/2014 11:18:21 AM PDT by keat
MURSITPINAR, Turkey (AP) -- The Islamic State group is about to capture the Syrian border town of Kobani, Turkey's president said Tuesday, as outgunned Kurdish forces struggled to repel the extremists with limited aid from U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.
Islamic State fighters using tanks and heavy weapons looted from captured army bases in Iraq and Syria have been pounding Kurdish forces in the town of Kobani for days. Since the extremists' offensive began in mid-September, more than 400 people have been killed in the fighting, activists said.
The beleaguered Kurdish militiamen defending Kobani received some support overnight and Tuesday from the American-led coalition, which carried out six airstrikes against Islamic State militants around the town, destroying four armed vehicles, damaging a tank and killing fighters, the U.S. military said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the coalition air campaign launched last month would not be enough to halt the Islamic State group's advance and called for greater cooperation with the Syrian opposition, which is fighting both the extremists and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"Kobani is about to fall," Erdogan told Syrian refugees in the Turkish town of Gaziantep, near the border. "We asked for three things: one, for a no-fly zone to be created; two, for a secure zone parallel to the region to be declared; and for the moderate opposition in Syria and Iraq to be trained and equipped."
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
If Turkey is so worried why aren’t they fighting ISIS?
The Turk Pigs are grinning from ear to ear as the ISIS satanists do to the Kurds what the Turk Pigs wanted to do for years.
ISIS is Turkey.
Because the Turks want to have its capital again.
Just think what would happen if we didn’t have a Muslim president.
Why? ISIS has no air force. To prevent Assad's army from getting air support. Turkey wants ISIS and the Kurds to kill each other, while their own Jihadists take over Syria.
Yes but why are they seemingly calling on our help to eliminate ISIS?
No matter who gets the upper hand, they’ll be against the USA, of that there can be no doubt.
Are we really this stupid?
I disagree. They may have backed ISIS originally, but when ISIS declared a caliphate, ISIS effectively declared war on every other Muslim government. They no doubt are happy to see ISIS killing Kurds and Shiites, but Erdogan isn't about to kowtow to them. So he has his own Jihadis he is backing to take over Syria.
Exactly right!
And this is a problem for .... EVERY OTHER MUSLIM COUNTRY ... so is the USA fighting their battles for them?
Let them fight ISIS on their own.
Sometimes I call out a country (Saudi Arabia / Al Qaeda) because they helped CREATE the monster, purposefully.
It is now incumbent on Saudi and Turkey to destroy the monsters they created.
While I understand that Turkey may not like ISIS quite so much as they did when they helped create them, I note that Turkey just last week opened up consular offices for ISIS, being the only country in the world that has semi-official recognition.
So Turkey has a LOT to live down. They need to get busy, or get kicked out of NATO.
Fox News has video of Turkey firing Tear Gas on the KURDS
Let them fight ISIS on their own. ....................................... 1st you have to take the Italian WW II tactical field manuals away from the, and retrain them to push forward not fight and withdraw.
Turks want ISIS to kill the Kurds. Kurds threaten Turkish sovereignty. This entire thing is a shell game
Turkeys city of Istanbul...which was Constantiple and was the seat of the Ottoman Empire...which will be the capitol of the caliphate...So turkey will not get involved...Edrogen might envision himself as the leader of a world wide caliphate...
anyway...Freegards
LEX
I get that.
But whoever gets the upper hand in the middle east they will turn on US.
Why can’t more people get that?
He'll have to get in line behind Obama, lol.
ISIS is Turkey.
I love that statement, because it is so powerful in communicating the point. It is great rhetoric.
You can’t be absolutely accurate in describing something, when dealing with lots of people over a period of time - but that strikes to the heart of it. ISIS is a surrogate of Erdogan’s foreign policy.
They may have trouble controlling them sometimes, but I believe that if the leader were to buck Turkey too hard, they would have him killed and replaced. They want plausible deniability, so he has to appear to oppose them sometimes.
The Turkish President is for a no-fly zone, because either Syrian or US aircraft would be targeting ISIS - it is a real tell.
They are closing their border to Kurdish refugees, to contain them for genocidal slaughter, or eventual ethnic cleansing. The best case scenario is that they only want to impose tight control over them, purging their YPG/PUK leadership.
Only Iraqi Kurds might try to save them on the ground, and they would be cut off far from resupply if they tried. If Iraqi Kurds tried to send a relief force, they will probably know to expect unacknowledged air and artillery attack from Turkey, making it suicide.
The elegant thing about a caliphate, is that it has historically be a driving force of muslim-on-muslim massacre. Doctrinally, everyone can agree that there should be one Caliph - as long as they are the one.
“Kobani is about to fall,” Erdogan told Syrian refugees in the Turkish town of Gaziante”
As he Erdogan - with one of the largest militaries in the region - does nothing, but watch with his binoculars.
Maybe the fact that Kobani is mostly Kurdish is why Erdogan does nothing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.