Defying Turkey, US airdrops arms to Kobane Kurds
http://www.juancole.com/2014/10/defying-airdrops-kobane.html
Defying Turkey, US airdrops arms to Kobane Kurds
By Juan Cole | Oct. 20, 2014
In a step that over-ruled Americas Turkish NATO ally, US jets dropped food, first aid and weaponry into the besieged Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane on Monday morning. Turkeys president Tayyip Erdogan, in remarks made on Sunday, rejected the idea of arming the Syrian Kurdish fighters, equating them with terrorists.
Al-Khaleej (The Gulf, UAE) reports that there was fierce house to house fighting in Kobane (`Ayn al-`Arab) in Syria near the Turkish border on Sunday into Monday between local Kurdish militaries and the invading fighters of ISIL.
At the same time, Turkey renewed its refusal to join any anti-ISIL coalition until its demands for a buffer zone next to the Turkish border with Syria were met. Turkey expressed strong disapproval of any plan to transfer American weapons to Kurdish fighters in Syria, since they are allies of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group Turkey and the US consider to be terrorists.
US and coalition air strikes on ISIL positions near Kobane on Sunday killed 15, adding to a high death toll for the insurgent group this past week. The bodies of some 70 fighters, likely those of ISIL, have been delivered to the national hospital in Tel Abyad in al-Raqqah during the past four days. The coalition air strikes also took out four armored vehicles that ISIL had captured.