​​​​​​​Kobani attack... comprehensive war against the people of the region is still continuing - 1

At every step of the revolution in Rojava and North and East Syria, which began on July 19, 2012, the battles were strongly present. The hostile parties did not like the gains achieved by the people, so the effort to eliminate them was always present.

The Battle of Kobani, which we are talking about today on the ninth anniversary of its launch on September 15, 2014, was one of the episodes of this declared war against the region, but it was not the only one.

From Sheikh Maqsoud to Serêkaniyê and then Kobani

The beginning of the attacks took place in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in the city of Aleppo. In the fall of 2012, mercenary groups paid by the Turkish occupation state launched attacks on the neighborhood with the aim of occupying it, but the resistance of the residents thwarted their efforts, but these attacks on the neighborhood did not stop.

Months later, the mercenaries of the Jabhet al-Nusra (now Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham) launched attacks on the city of Serêkaniyê  with the aim of occupying it and ending the gains of the July 19th Revolution there, but the uprising of the people of the city, which received broad support from the people of Rojava, thwarted these attacks after weeks of battles.

Meanwhile, separate confrontations were taking place in the vicinity of Afrin, Kobani, and Jazira canton (then). The mercenaries, who called themselves under different names, including the “Free Army,” “Jabhet al-Nusra,” and “ISIS,” were launching attacks on various fronts, but all It was failing, until ISIS gathered its forces and launched major attacks from three axes on Kobani canton.

The fateful battle of Kobani

On September 15, ISIS attacked the village of Talak, west of Kobani canton, with tanks, a large arsenal of weapons, and a large number of mercenaries. Then, a day later, ISIS opened all fronts, southern and eastern, as well as western, and began to advance towards the city of Kobani.

At that time, ISIS was at the peak of its power. It occupied the city of Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, while occupying large areas of Iraqi territory. It also occupied Raqqa and seized the 17th Division and the 93rd Brigade in the Raqqa countryside, after capturing dozens of tanks and huge quantities of ammunition.

There was a belief that ISIS would not be defeated, after it declared what it called the “Islamic Caliphate in Mosul” in the same year, and no military force, including the Iraqi and Syrian army, withstood its confrontation, and it occupied vast areas between the two countries estimated at more than 200 square kilometers, i.e. It approximates the area of a country like the United Kingdom and eliminated the borders between them.

But the equation was different in Kobani. 21 days after the start of the attack, ISIS reached the outskirts of the city of Kobani after occupying the vast majority of the villages in its vicinity. While everyone who was monitoring and witnessing the course of events thought that the city of Kobani would meet the same fate, the fighters defending the city were stopped. ISIS crawled into the streets of Kobani and began waging street wars in an unequal confrontation.

On October 5, 2014, ISIS began storming the neighborhoods of the city of Kobani after seizing the strategic Mashta Nur hill, but the fighters who gathered in the city center reorganized their ranks and began to undertake an almost impossible mission.

However, as soon as the first signs of resistance appeared and fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) began, along with military formations of the Free Army, which formed with the units the “Euphrates Volcano Operations Room,” the world began to interact with this resistance and a ray of hope emerged that it would be based to confront ISIS and a turning point towards eliminating it.

The resistance shown by Kobani’s defenders prompted the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS to launch air strikes on mercenary points in Kobani and its environs, but the United States of America, which leads the Gloabl Coalition, said through then Defense Department spokesman John Kirby that “air strikes alone will not be able to do this and will not save Kobani, there must be armies capable of defeating ISIS.

With the start of the attacks, leader Abdullah Ocalan announced a general mobilization to protect Kobani, and the Kurdish cities rose up in the four parts of Kurdistan, and young men from them headed towards the city of Kobani, crossing the border, and took up arms alongside the city’s defenders and participated in repelling ISIS attacks, especially in the cities of Bakur (Northern Kurdistan), which rose up on October 7-8 and demanded support for Kobani and preventing its fall into the hands of ISIS.

Day after day, the resistance in Kobani gained great momentum. The first of November was declared an international day of solidarity with the Kobani resistance, and marches were held in support of it in dozens of cities around the world. Meanwhile, the city’s defenders were repelling ISIS suicide attacks, tanks, and car bombs, and preparing to launch a counterattack.

Turkish support for ISIS attack

Starting with the emergence of ISIS on the Iraqi and Syrian arenas, the name of Turkey emerged as one of its financial and intelligence supporters. It was clear that ISIS benefited greatly, in coordination with the Turkish side, from the wide-open Turkish border for the crossing of thousands of people coming from all over the world to join the ranks of ISIS mercenaries.

Istanbul Airport, then the city of Diluk (Gaziantep) and Raha (Şanlıurfa) in northern Kurdistan, and the cities of Jarabulus, al-Rai and Girê Spi/Tal Abyad, were the route for those coming to join ISIS, with open facilitation from the Turkish army and intelligence MIT.

In the cities of Turkey near the Turkish border, ISIS set up guest houses in which it received people coming from abroad to join its ranks and sent them in groups to Syria and from there to Iraq. Turkish hospitals also received ISIS wounded daily to treat them, and the Turkish authorities traded oil with ISIS, which is considered a source of support for ISIS.

On December 2, 2015, Anatoly Antonov, Undersecretary of the Russian Ministry of Defense, confirmed the direct involvement of the family of Turkish President Erdogan in the oil trade with ISIS, and said, “According to available information, the highest level of political leadership in the country, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family, “Involved in these criminal businesses.”

ISIS's goal was to occupy the entire Syrian border strip with Turkey, so it attacked Kobani, but the mercenaries' plans met with great resistance and failed.

After 134 days of continuous battles, the defenders of Kobani succeeded in liberating it and completely expelling the mercenaries from it. They announced on January 26, 2015, the complete cleansing of the city, and the move towards liberating its villages.

Within a few months, the fighters were able to liberate all the villages and seize towns and cities that ISIS had used as bases to attack Kobani, such as the towns of Sarin and Al-Shuyoukh and the city of Girê Spi/Tal Abyad.

T/ Satt.

ANHA