Kobani, Kurdish majority believes Turkey is helping the Islamic groups. Hospitals overflow

January 15, 2015 By administrator

By Massoud Hamed,

KOBANI, Syria — It was not easy for Al-Monitor to enter Kobani. The random shelling by the Islamic groups, on the one hand, and the closure of the border crossings by Turkish forces on the other, made it difficult for us to get any news about what was happening across the border. The invasion of the city and the security cordon that was imposed on it — aimed at intimidating citizens — resulted in the displacement of about 200,000 people from Kobani and its surrounding villages. Most of them fled to the Turkish city of Suruc.

Suruc is about eight kilometers (five miles) from the Syrian border and Kobani. Al-Monitor had trouble getting in as there were no smugglers on the Syrian-Turkish border, who usually allow people to cross it. Those who cooperated support the People’s Protection Units (YPG) — the Kurdish forces fighting in the city.

Driving through some villages, Al-Monitor noticed that some residents are guarding the bordering region at night. The region’s overwhelming Kurdish majority believes that Turkey is helping the Islamic groups enter the city of Kobani.

That is why they [Kurds] are protecting their cities. “We are protecting our villages to prevent these Islamic groups from entering the city and killing our people. The Turkish state is supporting them with arms and helping them to destroy this safe city,” a taxi driver told Al-Monitor.

The city’s hospitals have been destroyed so as to prevent fighters and civilians from receiving any treatment and to force them out. The field hospitals treating serious emergency cases have settled in some schools and basements as the National Hospital and the civil one have been destroyed.

Al-Monitor visited the field hospital that was established by fighters in the city. “I studied in the Maghreb. I am a radiologist but under the circumstances I am administering first aid and taking care of other cases. The humanitarian situation is really bad and unbearable to anyone. The Islamic State (IS) is not only trying to control the city but to terrorize people with behaviors we have never been used to. They are trying to impose their 14-century-old rules. The hospital here is in a dire condition, as we are suffering from a lack of essential medications, which prevent us from helping some fighters and civilians.”

“I am not here after money but to protect my people and take care of my brothers who are fighting to protect this land. We have few drugs to treat people and we are not allowed entry of humanitarian aid from the Turkish side, while Turkey has been supporting IS armed groups,” he added.

Since Sept.16, the city of Kobani has been bombed by Islamic groups, at certain times systematically, and at other times randomly. Heavy weapons have been used in the attack on the city, which led to the destruction of properties and homes. Some regional and international governments have sent intervention forces to stop IS from advancing and to aid the YPG. The Kurdistan Region of Iraq came to agreement with the Turkish state and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units to allow the heavily armed Kurdish peshmerga forces to enter Kobani, which came as part of the medical crew treating the wounded.

Al-Monitor met with Lt. Col. Dr. Hussein Mohammed, and asked him about the medical situation and about the problems suffered by the fighters and civilians.

“We are working with the Kurdish forces. We have some medical equipment and medications to treat the peshmerga forces and the wounded from our brothers in the YPG and the civilians. We are doing our best to treat the wounded Kurdish fighters and civilians in cooperation between us,” he said.

Kobani has turned into a ghost town. Buildings have been flattened to the ground, while the majority of the city’s residents have deserted, leaving it behind for the snipers of radical groups.

Al-Monitor spoke with some of the YPG’s wounded at a field hospital.

“Here, we are fighting terrorists,” one fighter told Al-Monitor. “Being injured for us is as if we were on a break only to resume fighting afterward. We are fighting wherever we are, not only on the battlefield. The wounded among us take up arms to protect themselves and the regions we have liberated. I have been fighting in Kobani since the beginning of the mercenaries’ attack. I did not want to leave. We have to fight against those because they are a threat to the entire humanity. We are being administered first aid to treat our wounds only to go back to our positions. There are no hospitals where we can stay. Some of our comrades are sent to Turkey if they suffer from serious injuries but the Turkish government has arrested many of them and killed others. Therefore, we prefer to stay here and receive medical treatment in these dire conditions.”

It was surprising to see a foreign female doctor helping people in the stricken city of Kobani. “I came here to find out what was going on. There are many things we do not know abroad,” Maria Robert, an Argentinian doctor, told Al-Monitor.

“I had been following up on the situation in the city and I was deeply affected by the bombing of civilians and how they has been displaced randomly and systematically. Innocent people were being slaughtered without any reason and there was no one to treat the wounded. I came here so I could help as much as possible, for the sake of humanity and out of respect for my profession,” she added.

The battles between the Kurdish forces and IS are still ongoing in Kobani and many believe that the Kurds are fighting terrorism on behalf of the world because control over border areas by these groups is a threat to the international community.

Massoud Hamed holds a Master’s degree in journalism and is a Ph.D. student at Paris-Sorbonne University. He won a prize from Reporters Without Borders and is the director of the Nodem Media Association in Syria.

‘Islamic State is lesser evil for Turkey than Assad or Kurds’

October 10, 2014 By administrator

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is more concerned with the Kurdish problem in his own country and changing the Assad regime in Syria than with Islamic State militants, New Delhi based strategic studies professor Brahma Chellaney told RT.

RT: What’s it going to take for Ankara to do something to appease the Kurdish protesters, before the riots spin out of control?

Brahma Chellaney: Turkey is facing a bottom challenge largely because of the President Erdogan’s role in the rise of Islamic State. President Erdogan has played a crucial role in the efforts of the US and others to topple President Assad. He was the one who invited the CIA to come and actually train the Syrian rebels. Now he’s facing the blowback, and that blowback is going to be quite severe. In fact it’s going to get Turkey down the same road that Pakistan has traveled. So we are going to see the “Pakistanization” of Turkey in the coming years, and the Kurdish issue is one dimension in the larger picture.

RT: Some pro-Kurdish protesters have resorted to violence. How’s this going down with their supporters at home and abroad?

BC: The Kurds have long been repressed in Turkey. They’re not a small minority but a large minority, they dominate southeastern Turkey, the areas bordering with Syria. So they can be a major headache for the Turkish government, especially if the Kurdish insurgency were to revive in Turkey. The Turkish government, I think, handled these protests very prudently. If it tries to use too much force against these Kurdish protesters, the backlash could be quite severe and could trigger a revived Kurdish insurgency.

RT: Would a Turkish ground offensive against Islamic State be able to achieve a quick victory or is Ankara’s army more likely to get bogged down?

BC: Let’s be clear on one thing, for President Erdogan, the Islamic State is a lesser evil than President Assad and the Kurds. So he is even not sending his ground forces to battle the Islamic State. After all, his policies have contributed to the rise of Islamic State. He will not put his army against the Islamic State. That is the reason why Turkish tanks are just watching silently as IS terrorists continue to attack this town of Kobani from all sides.

RT: Turkey has reiterated its strong stance against the Syrian government, while Damascus says Ankara is acting as an aggressor. Is regime change in Syria still at the top of the agenda for Turkey?

BC: In fact, President Erdogan is telling Washington that if the US wants the Turkish military to intervene in Syria, it has to be on the specific promise by Washington that regime change in Damascus is part of the larger American game plan. And the Americans at the moment are reluctant to give that promise, and that is the reason why President Erdogan is not pressing his forces into action, even in Kobani, which is the city under siege by the Islamic militants.

RT: Islamic State forces are fighting hard to take Kobani. Why’s the city so vital to them?

BC: It’s strategic because it’s located on the access route which connects Turkey right across northern Syria to Iraq, but I think even more than the strategic importance of Kobani, is its symbolic value. This is the only city in northern Syria where some pictures of what is happening are available to the outside world, because it’s located right on the border with Turkey and therefore, international journalists can actually report some action from Turkish territory. But in other places in northern Syria where fighting is still raging, where the Islamic State terrorists are on the attack, we have no international pictures for our audiences. And because Kobani is an ongoing story that the media is covering from Kurdish territory, it has acquired great importance symbolically.

International Crisis Group stating the obvious in Karabakh report

March 4, 2014 By administrator

March 4, 2014 – 13:44 AMT

PanARMENIAN A monthly bulletin by the International Crisis Group addressed current and potential conflicts around the world, including situation in Karabakh.

According to the document, the U.S. Co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group mediating between Azerbaijan and Armenia in media interview early Feb cited progress in negotiations. Also, the document notes, sporadic armed clashes across front line which began mid-Jan continued, albeit less intense, with several reports of troop deaths from “both Yerevan and Baku.”

Quite predictably, the report of the ICG, which for many years has been playing at objectivity, failed to mention the actual instigator of escalations in the Karabakh conflict zone. Traditionally, the ICG releases reports listing obvious facts, also issuing annual prophesies of an imminent war in Karabakh.

The Co-chairs (Ambassadors Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Jacques Faure of France, and James Warlick of the United States of America) and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, traveled to Baku and Yerevan Feb 4-5.

In Baku, the Co-chairs met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and in Yerevan they met with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. In both capitals, they had consultations with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense.

At the meeting with Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, the Co-chairs shared impressions of the Baku visit, with the Armenian official stressing the necessity of preventing Azeri provocations. As he noted, Yerevan supports the Co-chairs’ stance that escalation of tensions at the line of contact undermines success of the peace talks.

With the Presidents, the Co-chairs discussed the outcome of the Foreign Ministers’ recent meeting in Paris, and stressed the need for further progress on the substance of negotiations on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. They emphasized the need to continue negotiations at the highest level, as was agreed in Vienna.

In their talks, the Co-chairs reiterated their deep concern over the recent escalation on the Line of Contact and the border, and called on the sides to exercise restraint in their actions and rhetoric.

In late January, a Nagorno Karabakh army soldier, Karen Galstyan, aged 20, sustained a deadly injury in a sniper attack at the northern direction of the line of contact with the Azerbaijani armed forces.

Simultaneous attempts of penetration by the Azerbaijani subversive groups were recorded on January 19-20 in the north-eastern (Jraberd) and south-eastern (Korgan) directions of the line of contact . The front units of the armed forces of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic noticed the actions of the Azerbaijani subversive groups and started an organized defense in both directions. The rival was thrown back suffering palpable human and material losses. Junior Sergeant Armen Hovhannisyan died from the wounds he received during the exchange of fire in the north-eastern direction.

Also, as a result of the continuous firing from the Azerbaijani side, a 16-year-old girl was wounded in her leg on Thursday, Jan 23 night in Aygepar village of Armenia’s Tavush province. Intensive fire was registered in the direction of Armenian border villages of Nerkin Karmraghbyur, Aygepar, Chinari and Movses, RA Defense Ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan told PanARMENIAN.Net

The injured girl underwent a surgery in the hospital of Berd town and later discharged, according to Ankakh.com.

“The Azeris fired upon houses, roofs. Now the firing has stopped,” one of Aygepar residents told Razm.info.

According to Nerkin Karmraghbyur’s page on Facebook, the firing ceased at about 5 am Friday. No one was injured; roofs of some houses were damaged. Earlier, village administration head Manvel Kamendatyan said that the electricity was turned off to avoid ignition.

Meanwhile, Azeri media outlets spread reports alleging that a woman was wounded by Armenians. However, no official comments followed.

Source: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/CrisisWatch/2014/cw127.pdf