Staff and agencies theguardian.com, Monday 13 October 2014
Heavy fighting between Isis and Kurds continues in Kobani, with reports that neither side is gaining ground despite losses
Smoke rises from the Syrian town of Kobani, seen from near the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border. Photograph: Stringer/Getty Images
As Kurdish defenders held off Islamic State militants in Syria’s border town of Kobani, US defence officials said that Turkey will let US and coalition forces use its bases, including a key installation within 100 miles of the Syrian border, for operations against Islamic State (Isis) militants in Syria and Iraq.
As night fell on Sunday, the town centre was under heavy artillery and mortar fire, Ocalan Iso, deputy head of the Kobani defence council, said by Skype from inside the town. Heavy clashes were under way in the east and south-east, he said, with neither side gaining ground.
Idris Nassan, deputy foreign minister in the Kurdish administration for the Kobani district, said heavy fighting had begun around nightfall in the streets and Kurdish fighters had caught attackers in an ambush.
After days of Islamic State advances, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Kobani’s Kurdish defenders had managed to hold their ground. The Observatory said 36 Isis fighters, all foreigners, were killed the previous day, while eight Kurdish fighters had died. The figures could not be independently verified.
Gun battles were taking place on Sunday near administrative buildings the jihadists had seized two days before, it said.
The Obama administration had been pressing Ankara to play a larger role against the extremists, who have taken control of large swaths of Syria and Iraq, including territory on Turkey’s border, and sent refugees fleeing into Turkey.
US officials confirmed on Saturday that Ankara had agreed to train Syrian moderate forces on Turkish soil. A Turkish government official said on Sunday that Turkey put the number at 4,000 opposition fighters and they would be screened by Turkish intelligence.
Also on Sunday, officials confirmed that Turkey agreed to let US and coalition fighter aircraft launch operations against Isis militants in Iraq and Syria from Turkish bases, including Incirlik air base in the south. US defence secretary Chuck Hagel, who has been travelling in South America, has said the US wanted access to the Turkish bases.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss private talks between the Americans and Turks.
US secretary of state, John Kerry, acknowledged the tenuous situation in Kobani. Speaking in Cairo, Kerry said the defence of of the town does not define the international counter-terrorism strategy.
Isis militants have taken parts of Kobani, Kerry indicated, but not all of it. The United Nations has warned of mass casualties if the border town falls.
“There will be ups and there will be downs over the next days as there are in any kind of conflict,” Kerry said at the conclusion of an international aid conference for the Gaza Strip.
Elaborating on a theme the Obama administration has zeroed in on in recent days, Kerry said the US has been realistic about how quickly it will prevail against the Isis militants. Officials have spoken of years of counter-terrorism efforts ahead.
US and coalition aircraft have been bombarding the territory in and around Kobani for days, launching airstrikes on dozens of locations and taking out militants, weapons and other targets.
The enclave has been the scene of heavy fighting since late last month, with heavily armed Isis fighters determined to deal a symbolic blow to the coalition air campaign.
US central command said warplanes from the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched airstrikes on four locations in Syria on Saturday and Sunday, including three in Kobani that destroyed an Isis fighting position and staging area.
Beyond the training and bases, there are other issues the US hopes Turkey will agree to. US officials have not said what all of those would be because discussions are continuing.
Earlier on Sunday, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, made clear the US has not asked “the Turks to send ground forces of their own into Syria.”
US officials are “continuing to talk to the Turks about other ways that they can play an important role. They are already essential to trying to prevent the flow of foreign fighters” and prevent extremists from exporting oil through Turkey. “So Turkey has many ways it can contribute,” Rice told NBC’s Meet the Press.
Hagel spoke by telephone on Sunday with Turkey’s defence minister, Ismet Yilmaz, and thanked him for his country’s willingness to assist in the fight.
Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said Hagel “noted Turkey’s expertise in this area and the responsible manner in which Turkey is handling the other challenges this struggle has placed upon the country, in terms of refugees and border security.”
Turkey and other American allies are pressing the US to create a no-fly zone inside Syrian territory, and seeking the creation of a secure buffer on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey. A “safe zone” would require the US and its partners to protect ground territory and patrol the sky.
Hagel has said American leaders are open to discussing a safe zone, but creating one isn’t “actively being considered.”
Alongside the Egyptian foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, Kerry said at a news conference in Cairo that Kobani is “one community and it is a tragedy what is happening there.”
The primary focus of the fight against the Islamic State group has been in Iraq, where the US is working to help shore up Iraqi security forces, who were overrun in many places by the militants. In Syria, the US is starting by going after the extremists’ infrastructure and sources of revenue.
In the meantime, Kerry said, Isis “has the opportunity to take advantage of that particular build up, as they are doing. But I’d rather have our hand than theirs.”
General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, has estimated it would require hundreds of US aircraft and cost as much as $1bn a month to maintain an area in Syria safe from attacks by Isis and Syria’s air force, with no assurance of a change in battlefield momentum toward ending the Syrian civil war.
“Do I anticipate that there could be circumstances in the future where that would be part of the campaign? Yeah,” Dempsey told ABC’s This Week.
