Iraqi Kurds approve sending fighters to aid Syrian town

ERBIL, Iraq/MURSITPINAR, Turkey — Iraqi Kurdish lawmakers approved a plan on Wednesday to send fighters to the Syrian town of Kobani to relieve fellow Kurds under attack by Islamic State (IS) militants, marking the semi-autonomous region’s first military foray into Syria’s war.

Kobani lies on the border with Turkey and IS fighters keen to consolidate territorial gains in northern Syria have pressed an offensive against the town even as US-led forces started bombing their positions.

The battle has also taken on major political significance for Turkey, where the siege has sparked protests among Kurds and threatened a peace process with Turkey’s own Kurdish insurgents, who are angry at the government for failing to aid Kobani.

Under pressure to go beyond humanitarian assistance for those fleeing the violence, Turkey said on Monday it would allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters, known as “peshmerga” or those who confront death, to cross its territory to reach Kobani.

Iraqi Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Haji Omer said the Kurdish parliament approved the plan in a session on Wednesday. “Today in parliament we agreed to send the peshmerga forces to Kobani as soon as possible,” he said.

Iraqi Kurdish official Hemin Hawrami said on Twitter the peshmerga would be equipped with heavy weapons. This would help the besieged fighters, who say they need armour-piercing weapons to fight the better-armed IS militants.

Gunshots rang out throughout the day and an air strike occurred near the centre of the Kobani in the early afternoon, while five Kurdish fighters were buried in the Turkish border town of Suruc to defiant speeches and Kurdish songs.

Idris Nassan, a local Kurdish official, said clashes had taken place in the east, southeast and southwest of Kobani.

“They [IS] are always bringing more people and weapons from the surrounding areas and also from [the Syrian province of] Raqqa and Iraq. It’s obvious every time they attack,” he said.

One resident who visited Kobani and asked not to be named said IS were still in control of the town centre.

The pro-IS Amaq News Agency released a video of fighters speaking from what they said was the centre of Kobani, claiming that their morale is high and that they are advancing despite coalition air strikes.

Suspicions

Two senior Kurdish officials said late on Tuesday that preparations were under way to send a small number of peshmerga to Kobani, known in Arabic as Ayn Al Arab, but it would take several days until the necessary arrangements were in place.

The United States said on Sunday it had air dropped medical supplies and weapons to Kurds in Kobani provided by Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) — a move Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticised on Wednesday because IS fighters managed to seize some of the weapons.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday two bundles of military supplies for Kurdish fighters in Kobani went astray during an air drop earlier this week, with one destroyed later by an air strike and the other taken by IS militants.

Twenty-six other bundles of supplies were dropped to Kurds in the city and reached their targets.

“There is always going to be some margin of error in these types of operations. In fact, we routinely overload these aircraft because we know some bundles may go astray,” said US Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.

“One bundle worth of equipment is not enough equipment to give the enemy any type of advantage at all.”

Speaking at a news conference, Erdogan said he proposed the move to facilitate the passage of peshmerga fighters to Kobani in a call with US President Barack Obama at the weekend.

“At first they didn’t say yes to peshmergas, but then they gave a partial yes and we said we would help,” he said.

Erdogan added that talks were continuing among officials on the details of the peshmergas’ transit. One Turkish journalist close to the government said on Wednesday 500 of them were expected to cross into Kobani this weekend.

Although Turkey’s relations with the KRG are close, officials view those defending Kobani with suspicion because of their links with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), outlawed in Turkey as a terrorist group after fighting a three-decades long insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in southeast Turkey.

The government wants a definitive peace with the PKK, but that process has faltered in recent months, particularly as Turkey’s failure to intervene militarily in Kobani has provoked fury among many of the country’s 15 million Kurds.

Ankara has also criticised the PYD for not joining the wider struggle to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, something the Turkish authorities have been demanding for years.

The US-led campaign against IS, which has seized swathes of territory across Iraq and Syria, continued on Wednesday as air strikes killed around 25 of the militants near the northern Iraqi city of Baiji, residents said.

US Central Command said it targeted the militant group, carrying out 12 strikes near Iraq’s Mosul Dam and another six close to Kobani.

Iraqi army tanks and armoured vehicles also fought off an advance by IS militants on the town of Amiriya Fallujah, west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, army sources said.

Syria’s information minister, Omran Zoabi, meanwhile said the country’s air force had destroyed two fighter jets reportedly operated by IS militants in the north of the country.