The overall progress in the Kobane (Kobani) campaign has been moving towards favoring the Kurds in the last 4 days. The reporters and observers all seem to hold the same opinion – the fierce Kurdish women fighters -within the Kobane resistance- are the reason for the success.

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Additional coalition airstrikes have also been helpful in stopping ISIS forces from re-supply. A key tactical strategy which benefits the Kurdish forces and equalizes the fight.
SYRIA BBC – The Islamic State (IS) militant group has been driven out of most of the northern Syrian town of Kobane, a Kurdish commander has told the BBC.
Baharin Kandal said IS fighters had retreated from all areas, except for two pockets of resistance in the east.
US-led air strikes have helped push back the militants, with another 14 conducted over the past 24 hours. (more…)

The Kurds battling for Kobane (Kobani) continue to request resupply and additional weapons from the U.S. and Turkey. However, neither President Obama nor President Erdogan have done anything to provide reinforcements for the Kurdish fighters.
Despite their isolation, and with assistance from airstrikes in the surrounding terrain, Kurdish fighters have been able to recapture strategic locations from ISIS control.

SYRIA – Kurdish fighters have launched an unlikely comeback against Islamic State terrorists besieging the Syrian town of Kobane, amid claims the resistance forces have now reclaimed swathes of the city.
Images this morning showed Kurdish YPG soldiers triumphantly raising their flag above Tel Shair hill in the west of the city, where ISIS’ own black jihadist flag had recently been flying.
Assisted by sustained U.S. and Arab airstrikes, the massively outgunned Kurdish troops have managed to do what looking impossible only a week ago – force ISIS to abandon strategic locations in the west of Kobane and pin them back elsewhere in the city.
(more…)

The siege of Kobane (Kobani) enters day #29 tomorrow. The Kurdish men, women and entire families continue to hold about two-thirds of the city.
Day #28 saw six suicide car bombs from ISIS aimed at Kobane leadership positions inside the city. Meanwhile in Turkey President Erdogan still refuses to assist the sieged city and will not permit Kurdish citizens from Turkey to cross the border to join their brothers and sisters in arms.

To the contrary today saw Erdogan actually begin to bomb the Kurds inside Turkey in clear violation of a 2 year ceasefire. Erdogan is doing just about everything he can to speed up the collapse of Kobane in Northern Syria. The longer Kobane holds out, the more politically dangerous the elements within Turkey become to the centralized power of Sunni Erdogan.
Simultaneously, pressure, or more aptly put, “optics” and “political pressure” are creating a disconcerting place for President Obama. At his core Sunni Obama wants desperately to support his ideological brother, Erdogan. However, the longer the Kurds in Kobane are able to hold on, the more pressure mounts upon Obama as more people begin to ask the question ‘why is he not helping them’?
(more…)

Ben Affleck is curled up in the corner rocking “back and forth” with his hands over his ears… “la la la”!

The Daily Beast has another good recap of a speech recently delivered by the evolving wannabe head of ISIS, Recep Erdogan.   Erdogan views himself as natural heir to the recreation of the Ottoman empire – ISIS is a means to accomplish that goal…. 
TURKEY – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took on the iconic Lawrence of Arabia Monday in a furious anti-Western diatribe. The Turkish president compared the outside meddling in the region now to the role the renowned British army officer played during the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during World War I. And Western diplomats here say the tirade bears a rather striking resemblance to some of the propaganda that has come out of the so-called Islamic State, widely known by the acronym ISIS or ISIL.

[…]  Erdoğan has been accused of at best turning a blind eye to the rise of ISIS and at worst actively encouraging it…

Last week, stung by Western criticism of Turkey’s conspicuous absence from the U.S.-led air combat against the terror organization, and the refusal of the Turkish government to rescue the besieged town of Kobani, just across the Syrian border, Erdoğan insisted he had no sympathy for the jihadists.
But on one very important point of history and geography it now appears there’s a serious convergence of views between ISIS and Erdoğan. In his speech Monday at a university in Istanbul, the Turkish president blasted the Sykes-Picot Agreement, a secret understanding (signed behind Lawrence’s back) that divided up the Middle East after World War I between British and French spheres of influence. (more…)

The Kurdish forces fighting ISIS in Kobane (Kobani) would beg to differ.
Despite the obvious, and well documented, non-support for the Kurds fighting in Kobane, Susan Rice goes on Meet the Press and proclaims the administration strategy is to support them.

“This is very early days of the strategy. The strategy is very clear. We’ll do what we can from the air. We will support the Iraqi security forces, the Kurds, and ultimately over time, the moderate opposition in Syria to be able to control territory and take the fight to ISIL.”

Water is no longer wet.

(Full Story Via WFB) On Sunday, National Security Advisor Susan Rice said the United States would not reevaluate the strategy to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS or ISIL), despite its recent territorial advances, and said that the Obama administration is still not considering boots on the ground. (more…)

One cannot praise the fighting resolve of the Kurdish people in Kobane Syria too much. The Kurdish men, and especially women, are amazing fighters and together with ordinary citizens including grandparents and children, they are striking back against ISIS.

Good outline from the Daily Beast HERE:

In a stunning show of bravery the Kurdish men and women holding Kobani continue to hold out—and an ISIS poster boy is reported killed

SURUÇ, Turkey—He gazes at the photograph of his daughter Evan on his cellphone as he offers to let me look. She is 18 years old with long dark wavy hair. It isn’t a snapshot but a more formally posed picture. The girl has lively eyes, a pleasant smile. It was taken shortly before she left a note for her parents telling them she was crossing the border into Syria to join the Kurdish defense militia, the YPG. That was six months ago and last week she contacted him and explained she was fighting the militants of the Islamic State in the besieged town of Kobani.
There is both sadness and pride in her father’s eyes. Ali, a 47-year-old shepherd and father of ten from a nearby village, says, “She is greater than me. I can’t be like her. I have not reached her level of commitment.” (more…)

I hold no opinion of Carly Fiorina in a general sense, but the way she responded to Chris Wallace’s retort about Syria and Obama was exactly excellent. Right on target – as she drew out the insufferable pretzel logic. Well done.

It has been three weeks since we first stated “all you will ever need to know about President Obama’s real commitment to defeating ISIS you will learn in Kobane”.  

Actions speak louder than words.

President Obama has made the ruse, his ruse, within Syria, transparent in the extreme.
We called this “Operation Decisive Ambivalence” as administration officials said losing Kobane “was not a big concern” to them.   The administration has done nothing to support the Syrian Kurds fighting ISIS near the northern border city of Kobane.   The Kurdish people are the “moderates” within the region that President Obama has specifically stated need support.  Yet he does nothing. 
Kurdish fighters, including women and grandparents, are fighting and dying – for them, failure is not an option.  If Kobane falls to ISIS somewhere around 10,000 Syrian Kurds will have been killed.  Yet Obama’s plan is to arm and train 5,000 “moderate” Syrian’s within a year.  Think about the insufferable fallacy within the logic.
There should be NO DOUBT -in the minds of U.S. observers- what is actually taking place in Syria.   Both President Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, are ideologically aligned with ISIS, even though they may express public disapproval of the methods.  Erdogan and Obama support the creation of a Sunni Islamic state, a “caliphate” within the region compromised of radical islamists within the various factional forces of the Muslim Brotherhood…     (more…)