Wednesday, January 28, 2015

An Incomplete Victory in Kobani

 Kobani Liberated After Kurds Defeat Islamic State

Throughout ISIS's three-month siege of Kobani, the heavily Kurdish Syrian border town, many wondered whether the battle would prove the Islamic State's Waterloo. For a group that so heavily relies on propaganda and momentum, its apparent defeat there this week at the hands of Kurdish forces (backed by American airstrikes) stings far beyond the battlefield.

"ISIL's defeat in Kobane further shatters the organization's claims to invincibility," Al Jazeera's Mohammed Salih writes, "particularly as it coincides with the group's retreat from Kurdish and other Iraqi forces in northern and central Iraq." Some experts have emphasized the importance of the defeat in the context of the group's efforts to mobilize foreign fighters⎯Australians, Canadians, Europeans, and recruits from across the Middle East were among the 1,200 killed in Kobani while fighting under the Islamic State banner.

More @ Yahoo

6 comments:

  1. True, they got it handed to them at Kobani, but why keep pushing there when all of Saudi Arabia awaits? John Robb at Global Guerrillas has mapped it out and shows ISIS has shifted south hard to flip Saudi. If it plays out that'll take any shine off a win at some dirthole at the Turkey border.

    Daniel

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    1. Thanks and yes and I've seen that, but don't believe Saudi Arabia can be overthrown by them.

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  2. Well ISIS just smoked a Saudi border post and the guards fled. Why would you think the rest would do any better?

    http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/01/journal-did-isis-just-enter-saudi-arabia.html

    Daniel

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    1. Thanks and they may or may not, but that supposedly happened yesterday and the only report is a non-English tweet which is now 31 hours old, so obviously not conclusive by any means.

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  3. True - wouldn't be the first made-up tweet

    Daniel

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    1. All I know is that, the JV team :), ISIS needs to be obliterated.

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