Turkish president fears strategic Syrian border town is about to fall to ISIS

The Islamic State group is about to capture the Syrian border town of Kobani, Turkey’s president said Tuesday, as outgunned Kurdish forces struggled to repel the extremists with limited aid from U.S.-led coalition air strikes.

Limited aid indeed...America's half-measures against ISIS are not even that.

Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham, using tanks and heavy weapons looted from captured army bases in Iraq and Syria, has been pounding Kurdish forces in the strategic town for days,

On the open ground that ISIS has had to traverse to get to Kobani, these pieces of equipment should have been sitting ducks for Drones and Fighter-Bombers. Why is it that the U.S. led coalition has allowed this mechanized advance to proceed?

Turkish tanks and other ground forces have been stationed along the border within a few hundred meters of the fighting in Kobani — also known as Ayn Arab — but have not intervened.

Exactly...they have not intervened...they have sat idly by and watched (literally) as ISIS has advanced, and are now beginning to occupy this strategic city on their border.

Between the U.S. and Turkey - if they truly wanted to - they could have not only stopped ISIS from taking this town, but they could have driven ISIS back 50 miles.

So, the question is...why didn't they? What is really going on here?

news.nationalpost.com...

It makes you wonder how ISIS has been able to travel through a desert in 100 car convoys and not been absolutley blow to hell with air power from the US and its allies. Until you realize that ISIS has been supported by the US, not publicly. Something else is going on here, they have to much power, are able to sell Oil that has been seized and that oil is sold in dollars. Hmmmm Supposedly big oil wants to put a pipeline through syria, but Russia is standing in the way. I personally believe this is more about Russia and destablizng the middle east using ISIS.

a reply to: Glassbender777

Once it's out of the ground nobody cares where the oil came from that profits from it.

Think blood diamonds.. The profit margin is huge enough to overlook the obvious morality issues. Someone just has to middle man the oil deals and they are good to go.

Not saying this is good or bad or anything just that they can sell their oil without help from the us governemnt

The Turks would like to see as many Peshmerga killed and wounded as possible before any intervention on their part........

originally posted by: Glassbender777
It makes you wonder how ISIS has been able to travel through a desert in 100 car convoys and not been absolutley blow to hell with air power from the US and its allies. Until you realize that ISIS has been supported by the US, not publicly. Something else is going on here, they have to much power, are able to sell Oil that has been seized and that oil is sold in dollars. Hmmmm Supposedly big oil wants to put a pipeline through syria, but Russia is standing in the way. I personally believe this is more about Russia and destablizng the middle east using ISIS.

I would have to agree that there is something strategic about this...allowing Kobani to be overrun.

From a strictly military point of view, U.S. air power alone could have easily frustrated this advance...where are the AC-130's, where are the A-10's, why have they not swarmed these forces with Drones, F-18's, F-15's, F-16's etc.? The Turkish miliarty could have easily then mopped up, created a buffer zone while the Kurds recovered, then withdrawn back over the border - sending the clear message that if ISIS tries it again, they will come back in and beat them back again.

Are we trying to get ISIS to over-extend themselves, to weaken them for the counter-offensive to come?

Has Obama decided to just let ISIS run ragged while he continues to build his (so far very wimpy) Coalition?

I suppose, even more importantly at this stage - how is it that ISIS is being allowed to press ever-closer to Baghdad?

What is the strategy here...is there a strategy?

originally posted by: mobiusmale

The Islamic State group is about to capture the Syrian border town of Kobani, Turkey’s president said Tuesday, as outgunned Kurdish forces struggled to repel the extremists with limited aid from U.S.-led coalition air strikes.

Limited aid indeed...America's half-measures against ISIS are not even that.

Turkey has a military - doesn't it? Let them get their useless asses into gear and pack a punch, or shut up. None of this 'oh, we'll just put in a token effort and allow NATO and everyone else to have a collective token go as well'. If it's on their doorstep then it's long past time to go insane with their own military and yet...

originally posted by: mobiusmale
Has Obama decided to just let ISIS run ragged while he continues to build his (so far very wimpy) Coalition?

Turkey being a part of NATO or not has the right to decide for themselves when, where and if they engage the enemy. In the meantime, Obummer just has to muddle through the best he can.

a reply to: mobiusmale

So we wipe out Isis over night... What then?

Some new black flag callaphate wanna be will stand up and do the same.

I believe they are giving the world (this includes the Muslim world) a show, the are showing us just how bad radical islam really is before its finally stamped out.

Like I said before you know they are making a list of people to go grab/kill but That's not all of them. There's a lot of people on the fence that will go radical once more blood is shed by their country men.

Buuuuuuttt after Isis pillaged its way across the Middle East I think even a slightly radical leaning Muslim would probably think twice about taking up jihad.

Basically it's a massive PR campaign in which Isis is allowed to absolutely stamp out any local support before they are finally shut down.

Just my 2 cents and the only logical explanation I can come up with.

It is a shame that Turkey will soon fall to IS. When Turkey closed the Dam in Istanbul ISIS said they would plan an attack if they didnt re-open it.

I don't think that people realise that ISIS is bigger and anyone realises. They cannot be defeated with use fighter-jets..

Watch this video by Vice News.

Do not forget that ISIS had 49 Turkish hostages (including diplomats) that it released to Turkey "magically" a few weeks ago. Turkey made a deal of some sort with ISIS to gain their release so do not look for Turkey to do much of anything other than beef up its border with Syria with troops/tanks for show. ISIS will likely stay out of Turkey (for now) while its consolidates its holdings in Iraq/Syria. The fact that ISIS has been able to move troops and equipment so freely and continue to take territory tells me the Obama plan is not working (as many, many military experts said it would not).

Obama continues to play a weak hand to its inevitable losing end IMO. I also think Obama will continue down the road of airstrikes only until the next election so he can pass this mess on to the next person without committing US ground forces. He is a loser on foreign policy and will always be a loser with his "lead from behind" strategy. Changing his strategy now would admit he was wrong all along and he is NOT going to admit that he has no idea what he is doing. He is in over his head and his advisors are morons. That about sums it up for me, carry on.......

a reply to: Glassbender777

well except that you're making assumptions that coincide with a truth you believe, not facts and the fact is that they have been getting bombed and the reason it's not having much effect is because we have no troops taking bombed positions to have a real effect. we have finite number of bombs for attacks and without troops bombings are all but useless on a battlefield.

the purpose of air strikes is to support ground operations, not to win battles by itself because by itself bombings have been proven ineffective in that regard and can only stall an advance of a convoy, now if we were allowed to use cluster bombs, chemical weapons or white phosphorus gas bombs it would actually do something but such anti-personal weapons are rather restricted and deemed inhumane so we're left in a situation where bombing is all but useless without ground operations to do cleanup.

Turkey want to go in and take out Assad with moderate Syrians and are using ISIS to get permission from the world. Gas pipeline project 2.0.

a reply to: LittleByLittle

Oh, they do? Well, they're running the game pretty close - don't you think?