This Is How Close The Fight Against ISIS Is To Turkey's Border

[Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu]

The battle for the Syrian border town of Kobani continued on Wednesday, with Kurdish forces, aided by coalition airstrikes, making a desperate stand to prevent an aggressive advance by Islamic State militants.

Kobani, a tiny enclave of Kurdish-controlled territory between the Turkish border and a wide swath of Syria held by the Islamic State, has captured the world's attention in recent days.

The battle for the town is especially poignant because it quite literally brings the war against the Islamic State to Turkey's backyard.

Media outlets often refer to Kobani as a "short distance" away from Turkey. In fact, though, it really couldn't be any closer.

As Google Maps shows, the center of Kobani is a little over 1.8 miles away from the nearest Turkish town, or about a 10 minute drive -- though the route would beflanked by minefields and heavily fortified by the Turkish military.

This projection show the territory held by various groups in Syria. Kobani is the small speck of Kurdish-controlled yellow at the top of the map, amidst the expanse of gray representing land seized by Islamic State militants. (Credit: Thomas van Linge)

The Islamic State's advance toward Kobani has raised concerns about a potential massacre, prompted questions about the efficacy of U.S.-led airstrikes and, importantly, put a spotlight on the Turkey's reluctance to take action against the militants.

Turkey, which has NATO's second-biggest army, has tanks lining the borderland near Kobani. But those tanks have remained idle, even as clashes between Kurdish and Islamic State fighters have claimed hundreds of lives and forced thousands of refugees into Turkey.

For Turkey, the fall of Kobani would be disastrous, as it would likely lead to both a humanitarian and political crisis inside Turkey's borders. The loss of the town would give the Islamic State another stronghold on a Turkish border crossing, raising serious security concerns and opening up potential smuggling lanes for the arms and oil that bolster the militants.

It could also threaten to reignite a decades-long conflict between Turkey and the PKK, the Kurdish militia group that both Turkey and the U.S. consider a terrorist organization.
So why isn't Turkey intervening to stop the war from spilling over its border?

Turkish officials have made vows to protect Kobani, but the country has so far remained steadfast in its inaction. Steven A. Cook, a Turkey expert with the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that domestic political concerns may explain the government's intransigence.

The country's proximity to the Islamic State, Cook argues, means that taking overt action against the militant group could provoke immediate backlash against Turkish citizens.

İlnur Çevik, a prominent columnist for the Turkish pro-government newspaper Daily Sabah, made a similar argument on Tuesday, writing that "the government knows it cannot explain body bags coming from Syria to its Turkish majority with parliamentary elections only eight months away."
But there's one problem with this assessment, Cook notes. Turkey's inaction will outrage its Kurdish minority, as the deadly protests have illustrated in recent days.

Turkey seems content, at least for the moment, to let Kobani remain a fight Kurdish forces and U.S. airstrikes. The result is surreal photos like the ones below, where Turks stand and watch as a humanitarian disaster unfolds on their doorstep.

Source:huffingtonpost

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/...sis_n_5952930.html?ncid=txtln kusaolp00000592

 

[Bavaria]

Mpaka sasa hatujajua US wanampango gani na middle east, hasa baada ya kutuletea ISIS

 

[Eiyer]

Kuna jambo linakwenda kutokea kubwa siku sio nyingi ....!!

 

[Adiosamigo]

Mpaka sasa hatujajua US wanampango gani na middle east, hasa baada ya kutuletea ISIS

Wanampango wa kuanzisha Jeshi jipya baada ya hilo la ISIS kushindwa kumtoa Assad.

Building a Better Syrian Opposition Army: How and Why | Brookings Institution

 

[Elungata]

Mpaka sasa hatujajua US wanampango gani na middle east, hasa baada ya kutuletea ISIS

Distablising of middle east for the survivor of israel its neighbour arab countries must be kept weak and in costant fighting among each other.
they must forget to buildup their military power for confronting israel.
their country must be to weak and destroyed by war among each orther to the stage that they will have to ask for help from US &Company.
which will make the west easy to install their puppet in power accross middle east to look after US interest.

and once syria asad is no more,the gas pipeline from qatar to europe will be built,this will cause russia to loose europe market which it depends for its gase market.
russia economy will fall and it wont be able to challenge US again,thefall of russia means the weakening of iran also,in the end US will be in total control,no country will have guts to challenge them.
and because US is under zion control,that means the world will be controled by them.
the endgame is,JERUSALEM will be the globo headguater of new world order.
arab wont be able to challenge it cause they will be exhausted by war and weakened to the last point.

 

[TUJITEGEMEE]

Some countries are misusing their global leadership.....this will lead to their detriment.

 

[Bavaria]

Distablising of middle east for the survivor of israel its neighbour arab countries must be kept weak and in costant fighting among each other.
they must forget to buildup their military power for confronting israel.
their country must be to weak and destroyed by war among each orther to the stage that they will have to ask for help from US &Company.
which will make the west easy to install their puppet in power accross middle east to look after US interest.

and once syria asad is no more,the gas pipeline from qatar to europe will be built,this will cause russia to loose europe market which it depends for its gase market.
russia economy will fall and it wont be able to challenge US again,thefall of russia means the weakening of iran also,in the end US will be in total control,no country will have guts to challenge them.
and because US is under zion control,that means the world will be controled by them.
the endgame is,JERUSALEM will be the globo headguater of new world order.
arab wont be able to challenge it cause they will be exhausted by war and weakened to the last point.

By the way that can be one of the possible scenario.

 

[Elungata]

US is good at doing these kind of things,manufacturing crisis for its interest.
In 1949, the CIA installed a pro-American colonel, Adib Shishakli, as the Syrian leader. He won direct American military assistance along with covert financial aid. The CIA station chief in Damascus, Miles Copeland, called the colonel "a likeable rogue" who "had not, to my certain knowledge, ever bowed down to a graven image. He had, however, committed sacrilege, blasphemy, murder, adultery and theft." He lasted four years before he was overthrown by Ba'ath Party and communist politicians and military officers.
In March 1955, Allen Dulles predicted that the country was "ripe for a military coup d'etat" supported by the agency. In April 1956, the CIA's Kim Roosevelt and his British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) counterpart Sir George Young tried to mobilize right-wing Syrian army officers; the CIA delivered half a million Syrian pounds to the leaders of the plot. But the Suez fiasco poisoned the political climate in the Middle East, pushed Syria closer to the Soviets, and forced the Americans and the British to postpone their plan at the end of October 1956.
In the spring and summer of April 1957,they revived it. A document discovered in 2003 among the private papers of Duncan Sandys, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's defense secretary, spells out their effort in detail.
Syria had to be "made to appear as the sponsor of plots, sabotage and violence directed against neighbouring governments," it said. CIA and SIS would manufacture "national conspiracies and various strong-arm activities" in Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan, and blame them on Syria. They would create paramilitary factions and spark revolts among the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus. The creation of the appearance of instability would destabilize the government; border clashes manufactured by American and British intelligence would serve as a pretext for the pro- Western armies of Iraq and Jordan to invade. The CIA and SIS envisioned that any new regime they installed would likely "rely first upon repressive measures and arbitrary exercise of power" to survive.
Roosevelt identified Abdul Hamid Serraj, the longtime chief of the Syrian intelligence service, as the most powerful man in Damascus. Serraj was to be assassinated,along with the chief of the Syrian general staff and the head of the Communist Party.
The CIA sent Rocky Stone, who had cut his teeth in the Iran operation, to serve as the new chief of station in Damascus. Accredited as a diplomat, a second secretary at the American embassy, he used promises of millions of dollars and unlimited political power to befriend officers in the Syrian army. He represented his recruits in reports to headquarters as a crack corps for an American-backed coup.
Abdul Hamid Serraj saw through Stone in a matter of weeks. The Syrians set up a sting. "The officers with whom Stone was deal- ing took his money and then went on television and announced that they had received this money from the 'corrupt and sinister Americans' in an attempt to overthrow the legitimate government of Syria," said Curtis F. Jones, a State Department officer sent to clean up the mess Stone left behind. Serraj's forces surrounded the American embassy in Damascus, seized Stone, and interrogated him roughly. He told them everything he knew. The Syrians identified him publicly as an American spy posing as a diplomat, a veteran of the CIA's coup in Iran, and a conspirator with Syrian army officers and politicians to overthrow the government in exchange for millions of dollars in American aid.
The revelation of this "particularly clumsy CIA plot," in the words of the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Charles Yost, had consequences that reverberate today. The Syrian government formally declared Rocky Stone persona non grata. That was the first time that an American diplomat of any stripe—be he a spy working undercover or a bona fide State Department officer—had been expelled from an Arab nation. In turn, the United States expelled the Syrian ambassador to Washington, the first expulsion of any foreign diplomat from Washington since World War I. The United States denounced Syria's "fabrications" and "slanders." Stone's Syrian co-conspirators, including the former president, Adib Shishakli, were sentenced to death. A purge of every military officer who had ever been associated with the American embassy followed.
fromLegacy of Ashes: The History of the CIAby Tim Weiner (pages 137-138).