Turkish police have clashed with people gathering at a border gate to welcome Iraqi Kurdish fighters bound for the flashpoint Syrian town of Kobani to fight the ISIL terrorists.
Late on Tuesday, Turkish security forces fired teargas to disperse people gathering at Turkish-Iraqi border crossing of Habur, where a military convoy of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government forces, known as Peshmerga, should bypass to enter Syria.
The clashes occurred despite the fact that Ankara said it would allow the Peshmerga to enter Kobani through the Turkish border.
More than 70 Peshmerga forces have just flown into Turkey and will soon be crossing the border and heading to Kobani — the town besieged by militants with the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group.
The Takfiri group launched its offensive on Kobani and nearby Syrian villages in mid-September. More than 800 people have been killed on both sides. The militants captured dozens of Kurdish villages around Kobani and control parts of the town.
Other Kurdish fighters are heading to Turkey via land before their deployment. Syrian Kurds had for long been appealing to fellow Kurds in Iraq to send reinforcements.
Analysts say Ankara, having already won the US green light, plans to let the terrorists seize the Kurdish town of Kobani before sending tanks and troops to fight them in a bid to capture and possibility annex the Syrian territory.