This is a blog which, as recently as a few days ago, I had almost no expectation I would be able to write.
But writing it I am, because a combination of US air strikes and forces on the ground may not only be winning the battle for the Syrian border town of Kobani, but handing ISIS a bloody defeat it won\’t soon forget.
Excerpted from Ruth Sherlock, Yilmaz Pasha and Magdy Samaan\’s article at London\’s Daily Telegraph:
Hunkeredin scrubland at the western edge Kobane, their clothes stained withsweat, and the blood splatters of wounded comrades, the rebelcommander and his men believed they had made their last stand.
Butthen the US Air Force struck: a bombardment that turned the tanks ofthe Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) into smoking wrecksand transformed the inexorable advance on this Syrian town into arout.
FirasKharaba, 39, the leader of Liwa al-Kassas, or “Retributionbrigade”, who was returning wounded fighters for treatment inTurkey, provided a first-hand, account of the epic battle for thetown has become an acid test of the ability of US-led air strikes todefeat Isil in Iraq and Syria.
Thisweekend, after almost two weeks of aerial attacks Isil has begun toto flee the Syrian border town, that they had been on the brink ofcapturing.
Atfirst the air strikes had appeared to make little difference and fordays the jihadists advance had continued into the centre of theKurdish town. The crucial turning point, Mr Kharaba said, the USairforce destroyed a building where Isil leaders had been meeting,killing everyone inside.
There is no doubt air strikes are enormously effective…if there are ground troops to exploit the effectiveness. In Kobani, that is what appears to be happening.
It can be argued that this the product of a lucky break – that if the building where ISIS leaders were meeting had not been hit, the massacre would have taken place (and – a cautionary note here – this battle is not yet over and it still may happen).
But good and bad luck are parts of war. What counts is the bottom line. And if the bottom line, in this instance was a bunch of dead ISIS “leaders”, resulting in Liwa al-Kassas gaining the upper hand, than so be it.
Let\’s hope that this happens again and again and again. If so, it will be my pleasure to blog about every success.
