Islamic State crisis: Kurds ‘recapture key Kobane hill’

October 14, 2014 By administrator

Tall Shair was recaptured after US-led air attacks targeting IS in and around the town of Kobane

Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State (IS) say they have recaptured a strategically important hilltop west of Kobane on Syria’s border with Turkey.

The advances were made after a series of air strikes by the US-led coalition.

The hill, Tall Shair, was captured more than 10 days ago by IS militants, who have besieged the area for a month.

Later on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama will hold talks with military chiefs from more than 20 countries on how to combat IS in Syria and Iraq.

Correspondents say the meeting in Washington is the first time such high-ranking military officials from so many countries have come together since the US-led coalition was formed last month.

In a separate development, Turkish warplanes on Monday bombed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebel targets in Hakkari province near the Iraqi border, causing “heavy casualties”, Turkish media report.

If confirmed, this would be the first major air raid by Turkey on the PKK since a ceasefire was reached in March in 2013.

Kobani: time running out for hundreds of besieged civilians

October 12, 2014 By administrator

UN warns of possible massacre if town falls after Isis takes control of government buildings

Syrian Kurdish refugee children who fled Kobani with their families stand outside their tent at a refugee camp in Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Islamic State (Isis) fighters are closing in on the centre of besieged Kobani, where the Kurdish militia have sworn that they will fight to the death, and hundreds of desperate civilians are trapped in streets rank with the smell of rotting bodies.

The extremist group is trying to cut off the city’s border crossing into Turkey, its last link to the outside world, and penetrate the western enclave where the Kurdish People’s Protection fighters (YPG) are most firmly entrenched. Those units stopped at least five suicide car bombs sent to blast through their last layers of defence in the past two days, activists and politicians inside the city said. But Isis is throwing fighters and ammunition at the exposed road to the border, and if that falls it would be a devastating blow to the Kurdish units.

“If they cut off the border, then everyone inside is going to die,” said activist and journalist Mustafa Abdi, who lived in Kobani until a week ago and edits the website kobanikurd.com.

“Isis can’t walk or shoot their way into the YPG strongholds, but if they can get their car bombs in it will do terrible damage. So far they have stopped them all with rocket-propelled grenades.”

The staunch defence has stemmed, but not stopped, Isis’s brutal advance through the city. On Friday the group took control of the government section of the city, including the main police station and town hall.

The UN warned of a massacre if the city falls, because even after a huge exodus of more than 200,000 refugees to Turkey there are still hundreds of civilians trapped inside. Two of them begged for a rescue mission in phone calls yesterday, as the battles raged through a powerful sandstorm that shrouded the city from journalists and anxious refugees who have been watching the fighting from the safety of Turkish soil, just a few hundred feet away.

“There is a terrible smell from bodies in the street. At first I didn’t know what it was,” said Welat Shaheen, a farmer who stayed in his home at the edge of the city when the rest of the family fled. “There are bombs and fighting all around, so no one really goes out.”

The 31-year-old is surviving on bulgar wheat and other dried food, eking out a tank of water stored up before the siege began. “I can’t wash myself, or wash dishes; it’s just for cooking and drinking. Please can someone come and get us out. If my water runs out, I will die.”

Another civilian, disabled engineer Berkal Karan, said he was eating only one meal a day to stretch out supplies. “I would like to leave, but everyone here now is trapped. When I hear voices I don’t know if they are Isis or YPG, so I am afraid to go out of my house.”

If Isis can take Kobani, it would give it full control of a long stretch of the Turkish border and a direct link between its stronghold of Raqqa in the east and positions in Aleppo province. It would also be a propaganda victory after its promises to hold prayers for the Muslim festival of Eid last week were derailed by the surprising strength of Kurdish resistance fighters.

Underlining the ideological gulf between Isis and its opponents, Kurdish fighters in the city are commanded by a woman, Heval (Comrade) Narin. Her forces have defied expectations by holding off Isis for more than 20 days, despite a paltry arsenal of light weapons that are no real match for their enemy’s huge array of heavy weapons, much of it raided from Iraqi army bases that the extremist group captured this summer.

The reputation of Kurdish forces may be bolstered by an efficient propaganda machine, but there seems little doubt that the men and women currently fighting in Kobani do it with the full knowledge that they are staring a brutal death in the face. A female fighter who was recently brought back to Turkey for burial had not just been decapitated, but had also had her breasts cut off, said Mehdi Aslan, head of a self-defence unit on the Turkish side of the border formed to stop the Isis fighters or supplies slipping into Syria.

Executions and mutilations appear to have only strengthened the resolve of fighters such as Azadin, a father of five who was ordered to leave for Turkey around a week ago because he has a family to support. He refused, saying that he would shoot himself rather than leave, relatives said. “Please don’t call, I’m fighting,” said a terse message on his voicemail when the Observer tried to contact him yesterday.

Despite their resolve, the group is now running low on ammunition and other supplies, mostly because the Turkish border has been tightly sealed for anyone wanting to travel into Syria. US air strikes, cheered by refugees watching the fight on the other side of the border, have helped to delay the Isis advance by taking out some of their largest guns.

“We are getting stronger,” said Anwar Muslim, a lawyer and head of the city council, who stayed on in Kobani after most of the officials left. “What we wanted from the beginning was to get rid of the heavy weapons so we can fight honestly. They tried everything to get inside [Kurdish-controlled areas], but for now they are still outside.”

However, even American officials have admitted that the air strikes alone are unlikely to save the city, with Isis being too well ensconced among its buildings to be bombed out. So the Kurds are desperately calling for further intervention, warning the world of a catastrophe that some fear it might already be too late to stop.

“For now, we consider Kobani lost, but we keep working and working,” said Abdi, the refugee activist. “It has been in the spotlight. People are watching it burning in front of their eyes and doing nothing. That’s still better than Kobani falling and dying with no one knowing about it.”

The Islamic state IE dispatch reinforcements to Kobané (NGOs)

October 12, 2014 By administrator

Sunday 12 October 2014 by Ara / armenews

The jihadist organization of the Islamic state (EI) sends many reinforcements Kobané the Kurdish Syrian city that tries to control for almost a month against fierce resistance of the Kurdish forces, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (OSDH).
“They send fighters from the provinces of Aleppo and Raqa”, the main strongholds of EI in northern Syria, told AFP Rami Abdel Rahman, head of OSDH which has a wide (…)

Turkey, Erdogan wants to strengthen the crackdown after recent pro-Kurdish riots

October 12, 2014 By administrator

Turkish Islamic-conservative government will strengthen its legislative framework to combat violence during protests after the pro-Kurdish riots that rocked the country this week, said Sunday President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “The Republic of Turkey is not a state if it was not able to bend a few thugs. They burn but they will pay the price. We will do more, “promised Mr. Erdogan in a speech in (…)

France: Armenian presence at demonstrations in support of Kurdish Kobané

October 12, 2014 By administrator

Chanting “Kobané resistance,” thousands of people have again demonstrated Saturday in France, particularly in Paris, in support of the Kurdish city in northern Syria attacked by jihadist group Islamic State (EI).

Gathered Republic Square in the center of the capital, the protesters – 6,000 according to organizers, 5,000 according to police – then walked to Bastille, behind a banner asking, “What are you waiting for action I need regular. Another massacre? “.

“Kobané stand, the people will win”, “Daesh (another name for IR) No pasardn” could also read several placards.

Many red flags of the Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK) were brandished by the demonstrators, who stepped slogans against Turkey, “accomplice” in their jihadist of IE.

“We urge the international community to stop their inaction and failure, which appear hypocritical in the long,” he told AFP Yekbun Eksen, representative of the Democratic National Coordination of Kurds in France, at the initiative of the gathering.

Denouncing “gruesome calculations Turkey,” member of the international coalition against IE but refuses to join the Kurds of Syria to rescue Kobané Mr. Eksen asked “to let the volunteers take up arms.”

“How can we let our brothers and sisters are being slaughtered?” Lamented Canan Seyhan, a Kurdish nurse 35 years based in Paris, “disgusted by the lack of support from Turkey.”

– “Armenian Presence” –

Several celebrities including Olivier Besancenot Pierre Laurent spoke, urging the French government to protect the Kurdish people against the jihadists of IE. Also note the presence of representatives of the Armenian community including Alexis Govciyan (Chairman of the 2015 mission CFC) filmmaker Robert Kéchichian. Ara Toranian, Co CCAF and Antoine Bagdikian, President of the Armenian Institute of France spoke at the finish of the event to expose the duplicity of Turkey against jihadists and affirm solidarity with Armenians Kurdish resistance. Daniel Augustus, association support Assyrian-Chaldeans also intervened in this direction.

Ara Toranian, co-chair of the American Chamber of Commerce forum

“France must stop his agitation game with Turkey and make it clear that it supports,” said the national secretary of the PCF Pierre Laurent, demanding “the removal of the PKK terrorist organization.”

– “Game disorder” –

In Lyon, 200 to 300 people marched through the city center to “condemn the hypocrisy of Western countries, including France, against the Kurds Kobané” according Dersini Azad, spokesperson of the “support committee the resistor Kobané “.

The protesters carried flags of Kurdistan or the effigy of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. Among the claims set out in the leaflets: delivery of weapons to the Kurdish resistance or withdrawal of the PKK terrorist organization in the European Union.

In Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), the event was attended by 600 people. A man, 26, outside the event, with a long knife and brass knuckles, was arrested and taken into custody. Earlier police used tear gas to prevent early skirmish between demonstrators and a man in a car, which had perhaps caused, police said.

Friday night, about 400 demonstrators gathered in Bordeaux and Bayonne to a hundred.

The pro-Kurdish demonstrations increased since mid-September on Advanced Kobané jihadist AR. These strengthened their hold on Saturday much of the city desperately defended by Kurdish forces less able, the UN expressing concern for the lives of thousands of civilians.

More than 20,000 people have also demonstrated Saturday in Dusseldorf, Germany, a country whose Kurdish community is considered the largest in Europe, followed by France.

Photos Robert Kéchichian

Syrian Kurds repel 7 ISIL attacks on Kobani

October 11, 2014 By administrator

Kurdish militants continue defending the northern Syrian city of Kobani, thwarting seven overnight attacks by the ISIL terrorists aimed at capturing the city.

According to Kurdish sources, the Takfiri militants intensified their onslaught from the south, west and east of the Kurdish city.

Kurdish fighters also foiled at least two attacks by ISIL terrorists near the center of Kobani.

Meanwhile, a UK-based Syrian opposition group says the US-led coalition carried out at least two airstrikes in the eastern and southern parts of Kobani overnight.

However, head of the defense council in Kobani Ismet Sheikh Hassan has dismissed the airstrikes as ineffective, and warned of a possible massacre if Kobani falls to the ISIL.

On Friday, the United Nations’ envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura warned that thousands of people “will most likely be massacred” if Kobani falls into the hands of ISIL Takfiri militants.

De Mistura further noted that he feared a repeat of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, when Bosnian Serb forces marched into the town, and killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys at execution sites.

He also urged the Turkish government to allow Kurdish volunteers to cross the border into Kobani and defend it against ISIL militants.

According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is close to the Syrian opposition, ISIL forces pushed forward on Thursday, and now control at least 40 percent of Kobani, including all eastern areas, a small part of the northeast and an area in the southeast.

However, local Kurdish officials say the Takfiri militants are in control of a small part of the strategic border town.

The weeks-long intense battle for the strategic town has forced nearly 200,000 people to take refuge in Turkey.

Syria Observer: ‘Islamic State’ takes Kurdish headquarters in Kobani

October 10, 2014 By administrator

The Syrian city of Kobani near the Turkish border is dangerously close to falling to self-proclaimed “Islamic State” militants. The UN envoy for Syria has asked the Turkish government to step in. Report DW

“Islamic State” (IS) militants are dangerously close to taking the Turkey-Syria border city of Kobani, seizing a secure compound on Friday according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The compound included the headquarters of the local Kurdish administration and the city prison in Ayn al-Arab, more commonly called Kobani or Kobane by its majority Kurdish population.

According to the Observatory, the militants were also shelling the eastern side of the city, site of the border crossing with Turkey, trapping the civilians remaining in the city and preventing further refugees fleeing Kobani.

The jidhadists have successfully surrounded Kobani on three sides and fighting between IS and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) continues street by street, despite nine US air raids on Thursday night.

The outgunned YPG has criticized the Turkish government for preventing their forces from resupplying. In an unusual step from the generally neutral United Nations, the UN Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has called for Ankara to allow Kurdish refugees to cross back across the border to help protect Kobani. He said that Turkey should “support the deterrent actions of the coalition through whatever means from their own territory,” and at the very least allow volunteers and equipment across the border to assist in defending the city, according to news agency AFP.

Mistura issued grave warnings about what would befall the city if overtaken by IS as he urged Turkey to consider the up to 700 civilians still in the city and the 12,000 gathered nearby: “If this falls, the 700 plus perhaps if they move a little bit further the 12,000 people … will be most likely massacred.”

Nearly 500 people have died since attacks began near Kobani in the middle of September, and an estimated 300,000 have fled the surrounding region. Fierce fighting has been concentrated on the city itself since IS militants overran the city’s defenses earlier this week.

If the jihadists take Kobani, they would control a large unbroken strip of the border with Turkey.

es/msh (AFP, dpa)

‘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.

Turkey’s Hegemonial Ventures in Syria and Iraq

October 10, 2014 By administrator

BY SETO BOYADJIAN, ESQ.

As the U.S.-led air strikes targeted the Islamic State (IS) fighters across the Syrian frontier with Turkey, the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani became more forsaken than ever. The township is now at the mercy of IS militants, who are poised to capture it after three weeks of siege.

Kobani, which is the Kurdish name of the township, is known by its Arabic name as Ayn al Arab. Its original name was Arabounar, given by the survivors of the Armenian Genocide who established it as a haven from Turkish atrocities.

No one is lifting a finger to protect the township and its people from certain slaughter by the IS henchmen. Least of all Turkey, whose armed forces and tanks are within sight across the border, yet they are acting as spectators to the calamity befalling on Kobani.

Turkey’s inaction is very typical toward all Syrian and Iraqi areas that are similarly situated as Kobani. This inaction is deliberate, because it veils Turkey’s hegemonial objectives in Syria and Iraq that were once part of the Ottoman Empire.

What lies behind this transparent veil represents the underpinnings of Turkey’s Neo-Ottoman aspirations. As territories belonging to the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago, Syria with its strategic location and Iraq with its petroleum riches are coveted prizes in the eyes of Turkey. They cannot be reincorporated into Turkey, but they must surely be brought under Turkish influence via the imposition of the kind of leadership in Bagdad and Damascus that is docile to Turkey.

To achieve this objective, the current governing leadership in Syria and Iraq must be weakened and thereafter replaced by “friendly” faces. This approach explains why since 2010 Turkey has been training, arming and assisting a garden variety of terrorist militants, including Al-Qaeda elements, to carry out their insurgency in Syria and Iraq. It also explains the current Turkish inaction in the face of IS onslaughts against townships such as Kobani. The Turkish motto of the day is: Let IS disintegrate Syria and destabilize Iraq. The more the disintegration and destabilization progress, the better are Turkey’s chances to reach its hegemonial prospects over its two neighbors who are supposed to be sovereigns.

Turkey views the insurgents in Syria and Iraq as natural allies in terms of enhancing its hegemonial objectives. Its belated and reluctant accession to the U.S. led coalition against IS will hardly bring any changes in its ties with the insurgent elements. Recent statements by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan evidence Turkey’s double-talk on the matter of the fight against IS and its militants.

Last Tuesday, in a televised speech in the eastern city of Gaziantep, Erdogan claimed that air-strikes were insufficient and that “ground operation” was needed to defeat the militants. He said, “The terror will not be over… unless we cooperate for a ground operation,” adding, “I am telling the West … dropping bombs from the air will not provide a solution.” These all add up to one solution in the eyes of Erdogan – “ground operation” is needed and such an operation can only be carried out by Turkey’s armed forces.

Erdogan’s solution, therefore, is to obtain a free ticket to occupy northern Syria. Yet this ticket gets even cheaper if one is to follow Erdogan’s recommendation for a final solution to the IS threat. A week earlier, he reiterated his call for a “no-fly zone” to protect against attack against Syrian air force. He maintained, “A no-fly zone must be declared and this no fly-zone must be secured,” claiming that he has already discussed this matter with President Obama and Vice President Biden.

The sum total of these recommendations yield Turkish armed forces a free pass into northern Syria – “no-fly zone”, protection from Syrian air attacks, then a smooth ground operation led by the Turkish army. As they say it in Turkish, “gel guzelim, gel” (“come baby, come”).

Of course this recipe carries with it yet another prize – the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime from power. According to a statement made earlier, Erdogan said that Turkey will fight against IS and other militants, however it will adhere to its aim of seeing Bashar al-Assad removed from power. As Erdogan put it, Turkey will fight IS, yet “We will continue to prioritize our aim to remove the Syrian regime, to help protect the territorial integrity of Syria and to encourage a constitutional, parliamentary government system which embraces all citizens.”

The real issue then becomes – who is Turkey fighting against? The answer is very obvious. Turkish fight against IS may only be a side-show. Turkey’s real fight is for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad and his regime and their replacement with a government docile to Turkey.

Hopefully, President Obama and the State Department are not overlooking Erdogan’s designs in Syria. These are designs that are incompatible with U.S. policy objectives and work counter to U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East. In this sense, Erdogan and Turkey continue to act as spoilers to U.S. objectives in that region.

Some 95 years ago, President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George faced the same kind of Turkish bravado. This was back in June 1919, when Damat Farid Pasha, the Prime Minister (or the Grand Vizier) of the disintegrating Ottoman empire, presented himself with a memorandum to the Allied Powers at the French Foreign Ministry in Paris. Farid Pasha presented the Allies with many claims and proposals to save his Empire from further disintegration. Among his claims, the Pasha also presented that “In Asia, the Turkish lands are bounded on the south by the provinces of Mosul and Diyarbakir, as well as a part of Aleppo as far as the Mediterranean.”

After the Pasha left, the allies rejected the Ottoman claims. As for the Pasha’s claims, President Wilson said he had never seen anything more “stupid,” while Prime Minister Lloyd George considered the Pasha’s presentation a “good joke.”

Now, another Turkish leader with Ottoman penchants, namely Turkey’s President and former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is making a similar claim.

Will President Obama display President Wilson’s courage and call Erdogan’s designs “stupid”? Will Vice President Biden manifest Prime Minister Lloyd George’s wit and treat Erdogan’s plans as a “good joke?”

Turkish Inaction on ISIS Advance Dismays the U.S. Report NYT

October 8, 2014 By administrator

By MARK LANDLER, ANNE BARNARD and ERIC SCHMITTOCT. 7, 2014

NYT

WASHINGTON — As fighters with the Islamic State bore down Tuesday on the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish border, President Obama’s plan to fight the militant group without being drawn deeper into the Syrian civil war was coming under acute strain.

While Turkish troops watched the fighting in Kobani through a chicken-wire fence, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that the town was about to fall and Kurdish fighters warned of an impending blood bath if they were not reinforced — fears the United States shares.

But Mr. Erdogan said Tuesday that Turkey would not get more deeply involved in the conflict with the Islamic State unless the United States agreed to give greater support to rebels trying to unseat the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. That has deepened tensions with President Obama, who would like Turkey to take stronger action against the Islamic State and to leave the fight against Mr. Assad out of it.

Even as it stepped up airstrikes against the militants Tuesday, the Obama administration was frustrated by what it regards as Turkey’s excuses for not doing more militarily. Officials note, for example, that the American-led coalition, with its heavy rotation of flights and airstrikes, has effectively imposed a no-fly zone over northern Syria already, so Mr. Erdogan’s demand for such a zone rings hollow.

“There’s growing angst about Turkey dragging its feet to act to prevent a massacre less than a mile from its border,” a senior administration official said. “After all the fulminating about Syria’s humanitarian catastrophe, they’re inventing reasons not to act to avoid another catastrophe.

“This isn’t how a NATO ally acts while hell is unfolding a stone’s throw from their border,” said the official, who spoke anonymously to avoid publicly criticizing an ally.

Secretary of State John Kerry has had multiple phone calls in the last 72 hours with Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, and foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, to try to resolve the border crisis, American officials said.

For Mr. Obama, a split with Turkey would jeopardize his efforts to hold together a coalition of Sunni Muslim countries to fight the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. While Turkey is not the only country that might put the ouster of Mr. Assad ahead of defeating the radical Sunnis of the Islamic State, the White House has strongly argued that the immediate threat is from the militants.

But if Turkey remains a holdout, it could cause other fissures in the coalition. It is not only a NATO ally but the main transit route for foreigners seeking to enlist in the ranks of the Islamic State.

Ultimately, American officials said, the Islamic State cannot be pushed back without ground troops that are drawn from the ranks of the Syrian opposition. But until those troops are trained, equipped and put in the field, something that will take some time, officials said, Turkey can play a vital role.