Over the past three weeks it is estimated that over 100,000 residents
have fled into Turkey from Kobane, the Syrian/Kurdish town on Turkey's
border, and from surrounding villages, as the town was threatened and
then attacked by Islamic State (Isil) fighters.
The black flag of Islamic State is now erected on a hill overlooking Kobane and its Kurdish defenders are desperately fighting a rear-guard action to save the town with sporadic air support from the United States and its coalition allies. The defence mounted by the YPG, the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is unlikely to succeed without the assistance of boots on the ground provided by the US and its allies, or by a Turkey reluctant to join the fight for fear of immediate consequences, that is Islamic State cells adding to the increasing unrest in Turkey and threatening Turkey's internal stability.
However, for Turkey, viewing the takeover of Kobane from its border and doing nothing is resulting in the unrest and instability it feared.
Kurds living in Turkey are understandably outraged and fearful that if nothing is done there will be a massacre of Kurds in Kobane and a repetition by Islamic State forces of the barbaric executions, beheadings and rapes perpetrated in other less visible parts of Syria and in Iraq, where the UN has attested there have been gross human rights violations.
It seems, at present, that the international community will stand by and watch while war crimes and genocide is perpetrated by Islamic jihadists on NATO's border.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has been reported as stating that preventing the fall of Kobane is not a strategic US objective. This apparently is so, no matter what horrors are destined to befall the town's remaining inhabitants.
At the same time, we learned that Syria in recent days acknowledged the existence of four chemical weapons facilities not previously admitted, which Sigrid Kaag, a special representative of the UN Secretary General, told the Security Council this week involved three facilities used for research and one for production.
Clearly Syrian President Assad is in violation of last year's agreement to eliminate chemical weapons. It is also now known that the Assad regime 'systematically' used chlorine in 'repetitive' attacks on its enemies as recently as this August.
What remains uncertain is whether Islamic State fighters have acquired any of Assad's chemical weapons and, if so, how and where they have been or may be deployed. That is another dilemma for the US, Europe, NATO, the Iraqi government and Turkey.
Looking the other way while men, women and children are slaughtered in Kobane may be perceived as a pragmatic response to avoid being distracted from a greater strategic objective but, in reality, it tragically illustrates the extent to which the international community, including Turkey, has lost its moral compass and abandoned its commitment to human rights principles.
The scale of the atrocities likely to be perpetrated in Kobane in the coming days will be far greater than the horrors of Srebrenica from which the international community and, more particularly, the Dutch, walked away.
Read more: People of Kobane paying a high price for our 'neutrality' - Independent.ie
The black flag of Islamic State is now erected on a hill overlooking Kobane and its Kurdish defenders are desperately fighting a rear-guard action to save the town with sporadic air support from the United States and its coalition allies. The defence mounted by the YPG, the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is unlikely to succeed without the assistance of boots on the ground provided by the US and its allies, or by a Turkey reluctant to join the fight for fear of immediate consequences, that is Islamic State cells adding to the increasing unrest in Turkey and threatening Turkey's internal stability.
However, for Turkey, viewing the takeover of Kobane from its border and doing nothing is resulting in the unrest and instability it feared.
Kurds living in Turkey are understandably outraged and fearful that if nothing is done there will be a massacre of Kurds in Kobane and a repetition by Islamic State forces of the barbaric executions, beheadings and rapes perpetrated in other less visible parts of Syria and in Iraq, where the UN has attested there have been gross human rights violations.
It seems, at present, that the international community will stand by and watch while war crimes and genocide is perpetrated by Islamic jihadists on NATO's border.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has been reported as stating that preventing the fall of Kobane is not a strategic US objective. This apparently is so, no matter what horrors are destined to befall the town's remaining inhabitants.
At the same time, we learned that Syria in recent days acknowledged the existence of four chemical weapons facilities not previously admitted, which Sigrid Kaag, a special representative of the UN Secretary General, told the Security Council this week involved three facilities used for research and one for production.
Clearly Syrian President Assad is in violation of last year's agreement to eliminate chemical weapons. It is also now known that the Assad regime 'systematically' used chlorine in 'repetitive' attacks on its enemies as recently as this August.
What remains uncertain is whether Islamic State fighters have acquired any of Assad's chemical weapons and, if so, how and where they have been or may be deployed. That is another dilemma for the US, Europe, NATO, the Iraqi government and Turkey.
Looking the other way while men, women and children are slaughtered in Kobane may be perceived as a pragmatic response to avoid being distracted from a greater strategic objective but, in reality, it tragically illustrates the extent to which the international community, including Turkey, has lost its moral compass and abandoned its commitment to human rights principles.
The scale of the atrocities likely to be perpetrated in Kobane in the coming days will be far greater than the horrors of Srebrenica from which the international community and, more particularly, the Dutch, walked away.
Read more: People of Kobane paying a high price for our 'neutrality' - Independent.ie
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