Kobani greater strategic prize than U.S. will admit
Success of U.S. mission tied to city
WASHINGTON — Dusty and remote, the Syrian city of Kobani has become an unlikely spoil in the war against Islamic State militants — and far more of a strategic prize than the United States wants to admit.
Perched on Turkey’s border, the city formerly of about 60,000 has been besieged for weeks by fighters from Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Kobani is now a ghost town — the UN estimates that fewer than 700 of its residents remain as its citizens fled to safety in Turkey.
The Obama administration has declared Kobani a humanitarian disaster, but not a factor in the overall strategy to defeat Islamic State.
But the U.S. cannot afford to lose Kobani, said Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria. That means the city’s fate is tied, in part at least, to the success of the U.S.-led strategy against Islamic State.
“The most important thing about Kobani now is that if it falls to the Islamic State, it would be seen as a defeat for the Americans,” said Ford, now at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
Said navy Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon’s spokesman, on Thursday: “We never said Kobani didn’t matter.”
Here is a look at why Kobani matters:
KURDISH APPEAL
The U.S. so far has been unable to help Kurdish defenders break the siege. The U.S. and its allies have said that airstrikes alone will not be enough to beat back the extremists. That requires ground troops — in Syria and Iraq.
Since U.S. President Barack Obama is adamant that American ground troops will not join the fight, the U.S. has been working to help arm, equip and revamp training programs for national and Kurdish Peshmerga security forces in Iraq and moderate rebel fighters in Syria. The Peshmerga and other Kurdish forces have been key in containing — if not defeating — Islamic State across much of northern Iraq. Making sure they keep up that front is a top priority for the U.S.
Irbil, the Kurdish capital in Iraq, has asked the Obama administration to further increase airstrikes in Kobani, said Mahma Khalil, a Kurdish lawmaker from northern Iraq.
Publicly, the Pentagon and State Department say the reasons for the stepped up airstrikes at Kobani are twofold: The city has become an easier target in recent days due to an influx of Islamic State fighters. And the strikes serve as a humanitarian relief mission to protect the city while Kurdish fighters reorganize their front.
WHERE’S TURKEY?
Kobani also has become a symbol of Turkey’s reluctance to fight Islamic State.
If Kobani falls, the Islamic extremists will have a border way-station for militants to slip in and out of Turkey. The U.S. has tried for months to coax Turkey into providing more assistance, including border security, to the global coalition against Islamic State. So far, Turkey has provided sanctuary to an estimated 200,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees, and recently agreed to train and equip moderate Syrian rebel fighters.
But Turkey is not expected to send troops or aid to the Kurdish fighters who are defending Kobani due to a decades-long dispute it has waged against a Kurdish guerrilla group linked to the city’s defenders. The fighters in Kobani are affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which both Turkey and the U.S. consider a terrorist organization.
THE PROPAGANDA BATTLE FOR KOBANI
The U.S. isn’t sure why Islamic State is fighting so hard for control of Kobani, a city with few resources and far removed from any capital. But like the U.S. with Kobani, a loss to a ragtag group of Kurdish fighters would be a propaganda loss for Islamic State.
Much of the daily fighting in Kobani is caught on camera, where TV crews and photographers on the Turkish side of the border have captivated the world’s attention with searing pictures of refugees, black plumes of smoke from explosions and the sounds of firefights on the city’s streets.
Last week, in pictures and Tweets, the militants’ supporters declared Kobani theirs, and changed the city’s name to Ayn alIslam, or Spring of Islam. The online jeering has quieted considerably after the airstrikes of the last several days.
Islamic State relies on its global online propaganda machine, run largely by supporters far from the battle, to entice fighters, funding and other aid to the front. If the militants’ victories begin to ebb in such a public forum, U.S. officials believe, so too will their lines of support. That alone makes the battle for Kobani a must-win fight for the U.S. strategy.