Religion of Peace™
Via National Post:
The conflict between the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and the Kurdish upstarts provides a glimpse of what the future might hold for the country, now in the fourth year of a punishing civil war — wars within wars.
Syria is now fractured into a multitude of interests, split along ethnic, religious and regional grounds — and each badly disposed to the others.
Last year, Syria’s Kurds seized the opportunity to declare independence from Damascus in areas along the border with Turkey. Today, they control three separate enclaves — Jazira, the largest, in the northeast, Kobani and Afrin. These are among the most peaceful and well-governed areas of the country.
In Kobani (Ayn Al-Arab in Arabic), about 80,000 people live under the rule of a Kurdish administration dominated by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a movement closely allied with the separatist Kurdish movement, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in neighbouring Turkey. […]
The road from Raqqa to Jarabulus, another town that has fallen to the Islamists, runs through the Kurdish-controlled area. Abu Omar al-Shishani, a Chechen and one of its most capable field commanders, has vowed to drink tea and pray in Kobani, which his movement plans to rename Ayn al-Islam. The Kurds are determined to prevent this.
Entering Kobani is not easy, surrounded as it is on three sides by territory controlled by ISIS; the fourth, its northern edge, runs along the Turkish border. But the Turks have no great love of the PKK-linked enclaves after years of trying to crush their own Kurdish population.
So far, the ISIS ground assaults have failed and the jihadis have suffered heavy casualties. Now, the would-be destroyers satisfy themselves with occasional mortar and small arms fire at the Kobani fighters, or try to pick them off with snipers.
For their part, the Kurds combine a studied contempt for their opponents’ tactical abilities with a sort of fascinated horror for some of their practices.
“They cut hands, cut heads, play with corpses,” said one female fighter.
“Many of them are on drugs. They attack randomly, haphazardly. But they can’t progress into our areas.”
A male fighter was more succinct. Asked about the Chechens who make up a significant portion of the jihadis’ manpower, he replied, “They are monsters.”
Despite the siege, Kobani looks well equipped to survive for the foreseeable future. But the largely unnoticed war here offers broader lessons for the likely direction of events in Syria.