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| A US Air Force Photo from Wikipedia |
The initial military successes of the ISIS in Iraq and Syria
have been reversed with the recent gains made by the Iraqi and Kurdish forces
which are supported by US and coalition airstrikes. Waging a jihad and trying
to establish a caliphate based on its extreme interpretation of Islam, the Islamic State, an offshoot of Al Qaeda, is
a big threat not only to the security of the Middle East but also to the world.
Although it claims to be inspired by Islam, the ISIS
is disowned by Islamic religious and political leaders who say that its action
is un-Islamic. In the battle fronts Muslims and non-Muslims are the victims of
the ISIS’ aggression. Local tribesmen have to cooperate or do the bidding of
the terror group lest they be punished. ISIS brutalities include among other
acts mass executions of captured enemies and kidnappings of women and making
them as sex slaves.
The terror group is able to sustain its operation through
seizure of oil fields and selling oil through the black market, kidnapping
for ransom and other illegal activities. It is also able to have its supply of recruits
with the use of the internet. Its effort in the social media such as Facebook
and Twitter has attracted fresh fighters from western countries, USA, Canada
and other parts of the world. Lately, however, the number of new arrivals has
decreased which is an indication that the appeal of the terror group to attract
new members to its fold might have been affected by flood of news report
depicting it in a very bad light.
The Kurds are indigenous people in parts of Turkey,
Iraq, Syria and Iran who are courageously resisting the ISIS advance into their
territory. While some Iraqi forces ran away from the enemies in battles,
the Kurds prefer to fight to the death rather than giving in to the demand of
the terror group. The Kurdish forces in the battle front include even women. The
Kurds are the largest stateless ethnic minority in the Middle East who has suffered
long years of persecution from the leaders in the four countries where they
live in.
To show its power, the ISIS has to deal with the Kurds
defiance. It has attacked some Kurdish inhabited area to include Kobane which is
situated in the Syria-Turkish border. The ISIS captured part of Kobane on September
2014. But fierce resistance of the outgunned Kurds has kept the jihadists from moving further. At that time many analysts thought that it would just be a matter of time
before the town could fall to the terrorists. However, the intervention of the
US with its air support has helped the Kurd stall the advance of the ISIS and
prevented it from capturing the city.
Turkey which was earlier hesitant to provide military
assistance to the embattled Kurds in Kobane has now allowed hundreds of peshmerga
forces to enter Kobane through its territory. This peshmerga forces now is
using artillery to pound ISIS positions. This development is a big boost to the
morale of the Kurds in its effort to repel the ISIS from Kobane.
To some analysts Kobane is of less significance than to
other areas that are also besieged by the terrorists. But the city has now
gained prominence with the attention given to it by the world media. The city
is now widely known to many people all over the world because of the ISIS phenomenon.
Whichever side prevails in this ongoing battle will have the psychological edge
over its opponent. For the ISIS a victory in Kobane is an inspiration to expand
the coverage of its caliphate, and for the Kurds, a victory is a promotion of solidarity
and loyalty to their own ethnic group and to the land or the territory which
they consider as their own.
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