KRG Kurds MAKE FIRST DENT IN KOBANI
KRG forces who arrived a week ago to defend Kobani have halted several Islamic State assaults and prevented the arrival of militant reinforcements but have yet to tilt the balance on the battlefield, according to officials in the besieged Syrian city.
Backed by Syrian Kurdish fighters, the KRG forces known as Peshmerga have launched counteroffensives to drive the militants out of Kobani, Shoresh Hesen, spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish militia fighting in the city, said Thursday. The arrival of the Peshmerga with their heavy weaponry also helped to significantly boost morale on the ground, officials in Kobani said.
Still, the 150-strong force has yet to make a breakthrough in the battle, Kurdish fighters and officials said, raising the possibility that the mission to help defend the small but strategically important city could evolve into a grinding campaign.
(Further reading: Obama wrote secret letter to Iran’s Khamenei about fighting Islamic State).
“There has been no radical change on the ground yet,” said Brig. Gen. Halgord Hekmat, spokesman for the Peshmerga Ministry in Hewlêr, capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government in KRG. “But the battle is moving from a defensive to an attacking phase.”
In a telephone interview Thursday, he cited the unfamiliar terrain and close-combat urban warfare as challenges faced by Iraqi Kurdish fighters more accustomed to guerrilla attacks and defending long internal borders in their neighboring homeland.
Thursday’s war-front assessments contrast with last week’s triumphant Peshmerga entry to Syria, which raised expectations that the fight backed by U.S.-led airstrikes against Islamic State would rapidly shift to help secure Kobani.
While the Peshmerga contingent are coordinating heavy weaponry and artillery strikes, bolstering Syrian Kurds’ ability to resist and attack Islamic State, KRG Kurds are mostly behind the front lines.
Analyst Salih Akyurek said the fanfare that greeted their deployment created unrealistic expectations of an imminent shift in Kobani and stressed that the limited force—backed by U.S. air power—isn’t sufficient to drive the militants from the city on Turkey’s border.
“It will be difficult to tip the balance on the ground with mere fire power,” said Mr. Akyurek, a former Turkish army colonel and researcher at the Wise Men Center for Strategic Studies in Ankara. “Without additional personnel on the ground, they can only protect their current position. It seems unrealistic to expect the weapons brought by the Peshmerga to achieve what U.S. airstrikes could not.”
Witnesses on the Turkey-Syria border said Kobani had been relatively calm in the past two days. Islamic State’s heavy shelling of the region as the Peshmerga crossed into Kobani last week seemed to have subsided, they said.
The deployment from South Kurdistan also heralded the opening of a corridor from Turkey into Kobani, which also started a trickle of military aid—a measure the Ankara government has and continues to resist. The Iraqi Kurdish regional government in Hewlêr delivered a couple truckloads of ammunition that clandestinely crossed into Syria via Turkey late Wednesday, according to the Peshmerga Ministry in South Kurdistan and local officials in Kobani.
“If the Peshmerga hadn’t arrived, we would have suffered much heavier losses,” said Mr. Hesen of the Syrian Kurdish militia known as YPG. “But we still need more heavy weaponry and ammunition to hasten the move from defense to attack.”
Kurdish officials also reiterated their call for more attacks on Islamic State targets to choke off the militant siege of Kobani. Late Wednesday, the U.S. Central Command said it continued airstrikes near the border city.
Despite the broadening campaign backed by the U.S. and KRG Kurds, Islamic State has proved resilient and remained defiant.
Kobani official Idres Nassan claimed that Kurdish forces had halted several Islamic State advances. Hundreds of Islamic State fighters have been killed, Kurdish officials said, even though they were unable to provide precise figures.
“We know they have suffered heavy losses, possibly hundreds have been killed over the past week,” said Khaled Barkal, vice president of the Kobani administration. “We should expect news of some victories soon.”
wsj.com