Jul 13, 2014

Amid its ongoing advance in Iraq, the Islamic State [IS, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham] moved some of its weapons to Syria and launched an extensive offensive on [the Kurdish city of] Kobani last week.

On July 9, more than a thousand IS militants mounted an attack on positions of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), seeking to seize the villages surrounding Kobani and then the city itself. The offensive began early in the morning as IS militants, moving with heavy weaponry from their bases in Raqqa and Tell Abyad, attacked YPG positions in the village of Evdiko. The Syrian-based ANHA agency reported that the clashes spilled over to a wide area after the YPG responded to the attack and that IS’s objective was to capture Kobani.

Ibrahim Muslim from the Tell Abyad Civic Society Union said that more than a thousand IS members took part in the attack on Evdiko alone. Other villages around Kobani were also targeted with tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and mortars. As the fighting between IS and the YPG spread to wide areas, more than a hundred IS members were reportedly killed and many others injured. No information was immediately available on YPG casualties. Four tanks were reportedly destroyed in the clashes over the past week. Wounded militants were carried on tanks to Raqqa and Tell Abyad.

Calls for mobilization

The leadership of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) issued a written statement urging all Kurds to join the fight against IS. “We call especially on the patriotic youth of North Kurdistan [Turkey’s southeast] and on all our people and the resistance youth of the South [Iraqi Kurdistan], Rojava [Syria’s Kurdish region] and East Kurdistan [Iran’s Kurdish region] to heed the Kobani canton’s mobilization call, consider it a duty of national honor and respond with strong participation,” the KCK appeal said.