S C E N E (VI)  

دير عز الزور 

                                            Der Ez-Zor, Syria, 2017ce 

Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria  

*** 

Flaming, low-lying wreckage spreads before us in every direction. The ruins of an already desolated land. Sprawling two-story compounds along a mighty river. Pock marked with rifle rounds. Misery is found everywhere. Syria is now a byword for total warfare, over 600,000 people have so far died. “A Revolution in a Civil War.” “A Third World War using several dozen proxy armies is underway”. Russia, Iran, China, America, and Europe all have their boots on the ground. In Northern Syria, an unrecognized administration in three cantons protects 4 million civilians and internal refugees. A Kurdish lead project for democracy, ethnic pluralism, women’s empowerment, and something called ‘social ecology’. The sun bakes you, and the dust gets into absolutely everything. 

HEVAL CHIYA¹⁹  

In Deir Ez-Zor Province, a wasteland along the North bank of the Euphrates, in a few hundred hamlets, from their ‘capitals’ in Raqqa and Mosul, Iraq the most hateful and radical of Islamic fascists rules over 10 million persons. Some happily embrace its Caliph Baghdadi as the fulfillment of prophecy. Over 50,000 Muslim Jihadists from around the world arrived to reinforce this effort. At its maximum the Islamic State occupied massive swaths of Eastern Syria and Northwestern Iraq, threatening to capture Baghdad and Damascus. 

Deir Ez-Zor was one of the very first Syrian cities in 2011 to stage large scale demonstrations against the Assad Regime. In 2014 ISIS took over the city with little resistance leaving only a small pocket of pro-Assad military and over 100,000 civilian supporters cut off in an airbase and small section of the city. Supplied by helicopters and high altitude drop services, the besieged garrison deep inside the ISIS control zone resisted capture for over 3 years and 2 months.   

The siege of Deir Ez-Zor Airbase garrison lasted an exceedingly long time. ‘Daesh’ controlled everything except a small military airport which the Russians and Regime supplied by air for all of the war, but could not re-take, along with the city until just a month ago when it was “liberated” on 3^rd November 2017 by the SAA and the Russians.  

At some point the Regime soldiers made the local women trade sex for basic rations of food. There were rarely sympathetic forces in the war, besides ours. But even if the Y.P.G. is conscripting children, forcing Arabs off their lands, and dabbling in occasional war crimes from time to time, to time. Now, on the South bank, Assad Regime forces, Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary guards and Russian special forces push southeast down the southern bank of the river while Syrian Democratic Forces and United States lead coalition forces pushed rapidly south to the Euphrates North bank, both sides maneuvering to secure the majority of the Syrian oil fields. The S.D.F. capture most of them. Now we slowly begin the final offensive to capture Isis’s last strongholds, moving down the river toward Hajin. Trying not to kick off World War Three. 

“Perhaps I am not where I am supposed to be,” muses Heval Ciya, “Perhaps here, I will die for nothing useful at all. We can be killed so easily by anything, then they will dance about with my corpse making speeches in Kurmanji for a day, until my death takes on significance that it probably never had.” It seems like every other day; a man wanders off and steps on something and explodes. The mines are everywhere, can’t be understated. You should try to never walk anywhere you have never seen someone else walk. 

 Heval Ciya Zinar is the name they gave me. “Comrade Friend Mountain Rock”. I am a separatist minded Scottish Soldier. Although still a member of the British army, I voted for independence in our latest failed referendum. I am a gentleman by most accounts and a Y.P.G. International Volunteer. I have no political sympathies with the Kurdish lead formations, though I possess formal military training, making me more valuable than most of these preachy, useless ideologically motivated volunteers.  

“There’s dust in my beard and men die all around me!” exclaims Heval Ciya from Scotland. As we grew closer to the Euphrates, we could see fire in the sky and the night was lit up with heavy coalition airstrikes somewhere far away to the south. The convoy of nine trucks had left Al Hasakah^20, the largest rebel-held city, in the morning and drove about five hours south toward some forward operating base. The eight of us internationals had not been issued weapons until halfway to the front. We stopped of course several times for obligatory tea and some volleyball. The sport of ‘Apoist’ revolution. Sometimes we’d stop at what seemed like the same identical storefront kiosk, next to well-stocked pharmacies. The road bodega of Kurdistan is stocked with energy drinks, smokes, and Turkish day to day items, never toilet paper. All the toilet paper in Syria was now gone. There we bought energy drinks and cigarettes of a more potent type, as the party issued Ardens were lights or ultra lights at best. There were tons of canned Pepsi, but no Coca-Cola throughout the liberated zones. Real freedom evidently has not been won yet. 

In the first battle that I participated in during the Syrian Civil War five Arab soldiers in our S.D.F./ Y.P.G. Unit were blown to bits by mines and mortars as we stormed the river basin a little after midnight. Evidently, there were far more Daesh entrenched than we had thought. From a dirt sand trench, I fired my AK-47 shiftlessly over the wall, peaking out I saw an Arab comrade ripped apart by gun fire and collapse in the sand. 

The fire fight resumed immediately after a short re-calibration of the battle plan, after Heval Commander Dalil’s men were buried. A larger number of Kasadeh²¹ were trucked in, barely trained. Half or more might have fought for Daesh or the Regime at some point. Child soldiers all over the place. A major conscription drive happened, even some cadro tabors were moved in. This was a race to secure as much turf north of the Euphrates as we could as quickly as we could, creating a defensible buffer against the regime, Russians and Iranians to secure the oil fields. Of course, implicit in all that was to finish Daesh for good. Smash their final positions along 60 to 100 hamlets and miserable dust cake boney towns leading to Hajin, for the very last stand of the caliphate.  

Very bad intelligence my friends! The bandits were still very well dug in, refugees were swarming out and among them suicide bombers. Five so far. it was impossible to know anymore who was Daesh or not among the refugees flooding out. Some two dozen Arab Hevals were martyred the first night of the operation. We were down to the hardcore of the elite, the foreign fighter zealots, their families. Motorcycles with snipers affixed to reposition.  Sleeper cell deployment, suicide bombers, booby traps, tunnel mines, the usual. Now they would in four battalions capture about fifty tiny key destitute towns working south in several prongs toward the river.  

“If you see a helicopter, don’t shoot at it!” Dalal had said, it was our new resupply drop copters. We allegedly had a very, very small air force now. “Do not shoot at the helicopters in general,” was repeated several times in Arabic and Kurdish. “Also, also! If the regime forces fire, return fire, but do not engage them. Unless they cross the river. Declared Commander Heval Brusk, which means ‘commander lightning’. Commander lightning then personally presided over a few hours on conscript drills. None of these bearded partisans were trusted with grenades. 

So, the very next day, at early dawn, ten of the destitution ridden little seemingly strategic ISIS hamlets were again stormed.  
There was chaotic gun fire erupting everywhere. There were utterly ransacked two story brown buildings all unfinished, all about the same shattered look. From several positions Takim²² commandos were firing endlessly from roof tops and sniper holes out toward where it was believed the enemy was hiding. A mosque about half a kilometer away. Well of course every Daesh position was in a mosque, hospital or granary since nothing else was defensible.  
This was a mostly one-sided AK-47 and mortar barrage. Much of the war had proceeded like this, pickup trucks dripping light infantry to storm abandoned Arab homes and light up anything that moved. Loot absolutely anything that wasn’t made of sand and carry it back north. One pipe, one water basin, one carpet at a time. 
A small child runs out into the road and is blown away. Briefly a pause, until he is clearly limp and dead. A day or two more of endless AK fire, sometimes at night too. Eventually the Americans were told to bomb the mosque. Spotters transmit grid coordinates. Soon, about 5 minutes later an airstrike rips apart the mosque. Battle won! Many people have written at length about “how boring” it can be to be at war, but it is more terrifying than boring, Heval. You do your best to not think about how men and women far more prepared than yourself took a wrong turn and then just exploded. Or how a sniper cut them down. Or how they died in a Turkish airstrike. Or contracted hepatitis because of poor local appreciation of pooping with toilet paper and hand washing, then eating. 

“The boredom of war Heval is perhaps a cover for a sneaking debilitating fear. A pervasive feeling you will not make it out alive,” so that is what people sometimes write about who write about war. Being bored, instead of often being afraid. And in a war, such as this certainly you sit around quite a lot drinking tea, smoking weak Party issued cigarettes and standing guard. Or looking for strategic places to jerk off or poop without setting off a mine. But nothing for us was the same for very long and thus all the time you spent sitting around was better spent ‘conversating’ on the Revolution’s bleak future, or studying some Kurdish, or horsing around with the Arabs. Who loved to try and communicate actually. And show you pornography and awkwardly try and steal, trade for or buy your hand grenades. Or ask you to bring them to America or Europe hidden in a bag. Jokes abound, but really it is only you who will be brought back to Europe or America in a bag. 
While very few of us spoke any real Kurmanji Kurdish²³ or Arabic, it seemed that the Arabs were far more interested in us than the Kurds though. I would call the Kurdish commander’s attitude, begrudging appreciation, and that of the rank-and-file borderline insulting. I would go so far as to say that at this stage in the war, being fought in majority Arab zones now by the Euphrates River that an increasing number of the front-line fighters were Kasadeh²⁴, non-Kurdish Arab S.D.F. fighters. The Assyrians too had a small group, less than a few hundred men, many little kids and old men. Many poorly trained and poorly paid semi conscripts. Many were not even very against the Islamic State, more eager to shoot at the Russians and regime forces on the other side of the river. With the Kadros²⁵ being withheld in clear preparation for the impending defense of Afrin Canton.  

In retrospect I assume that Heval Fermander Dalil²⁶ probably saved our lives by abandoning us in a rear fox hole in the dead of night. The ten internationalists that I was aware of were placed further back in the rear, but Heval Shervan ‘the crazed Irish gypsy’ commandeered a Humvee and caught us up, without any invitation to the troops of “Fermander Dalil”. 

I remember freezing out in the dunes all night long while the Arab fighters shared neither bedding nor blanket. It was so bitterly G-d damn cold! Sometimes Heval Kawa, the idealistic New Yorker, and I talk about the girls back home. I will talk about my Ms. Ashley. He talks about his “Daria”. Some escort Russian he has some arty muse thing with. Pretty much this is what men at war do. Although in my case, I motorboated my female best friend. In his case it seems a bit more fucking dark and tragic. 

“Sometimes I close my eyes and remember your lips. Late into the long trip back to Brighton to your so-called home. I have no home, only ugly little flats around Brooklyn soviet which I rent out of poverty, artless and shared. Decorated with trinkets. I’ll never go back! To you or to Russia, or Haiti, nor to Mehanata the tavern or even dear Cuba! All these things are a form of slavery now. Your lingering Daria, it takes the form of ruminations on WhatsApp messages telling me to “come home”. But to what? To nothing. Life here is hard, but it is free life as they say.”  

Kawa, the “so-called American”, is more a poet than a medic in his heart of hearts. Me? I am simply a Scottish warrior. I longed for the fight and I got some. 

I was deployed into the Deir Ez-Zor Province wastelands about ten days ago to the front near Omar, Daesh is nearly completely defeated they say, but every day we are taking martyr bodies back to Al-Hasaka. Assigned briefly to the Tabor Shahid Lawrence; we lost fifty men in the first few battles to advance south on the mighty Euphrates River. After all that initial death it seems they aim to break up our group of internationalists into different places. They do not want us all to die at once! They do not really seem to have achieved consensus or a plan on where we should be or when and if we should die, or what we are even good for? Or what to do when ISIS is finished, and America abandons them, and the Turkish Army rolls over the border to kill us all. A heated internal debate is constantly held in both Turkish and Kurdish. Sometimes also in Arabic. Which always ends inconclusively. Well, its a complex matter anyway. So many ways to die out here for the greatest cause of our time. 

On this matter Kawa and I agree that whatever motives brought us all to this wasteland, this place of dying and suffering over made-up Gods and ideologies, invented ethnicities and World War three style great power politics; this was the resistance of the age. This was a battle between good men, bad men and crazy men who could not sit out. Because when the smoke clears there will be a different Middle East, a different world. I am no ideologue. I am no dreamer or religious fanatic. I am a professional soldier. While it is not unreasonable to say the Assad Regime backed by Russia and Iran, the Turks, Al Qaeda and of course the Daesh, are unequivocal forces of religious fanatical reaction, of fascism, or totalitarianism and death, well they are. While the Kurds and Arabs of Y.P.G./Y.P.J./S.D.F. are not saints of course. We are not angels here to help do some God’s work. We are fighting for democracy, feminism, ecology and tolerance in the heart of the Middle East. As opposed to all the other groups that are fighting for radical Islam, chauvinism, fascism and the right to impose the will of the minority on the majority.  

“Did you know that when you take off a person’s uniform to bury them, you cannot tell a fascist corpse, from a democratic corpse, from a Daesh corpse, not even from the length of the beard?”  

Those three letter affiliations do not matter anyway. It matters more, the stuff inside a person’s heart. Their moral compass. Not the length of the beard or who they pray to. Not the historic struggle of their people or their claim to the rivers. When true warriors die, they might not end up anywhere glorious. They might just be dead. The “immortality” we are achieving in our death here is thus rooted in the way the story is framed. Which is to say, whoever wins the war. But can you really win a revolution inside a civil war, inside a World War?  I see no good ending in sight. We will all get killed ingloriously. But there is of course a timeless epic glory for young men of all cultures to join an impossible battle, risk their lives and join a pantheon of immortal heroes. Of course, the Arabs, Assyrians, Kurds, Turks, Chechens, Turkmen, Persians and all the other micro-ethnic tribes gathered here to make war, well they sadly all have no choices. These are the oil rich, strategic holy lands and mountains they were cursed perhaps by their gods to be born in.  

How did we even get here? How did this motley group of around 500 mostly Western foreigners take up the cause of Kurdistan?  

Well, it began with a letter of introduction. As well as four short pamphlets that were written by the Uncle Leader himself, while serving twenty-one years in solitary confinement on the Turkish prison island of Imrali.  These pamphlets attempt to paraphrase thousands and thousands of handwritten theoretical documents smuggled out by his lawyers from Imrali. The name of this 8-volume treatise are called alternatively “Democratic Confederalism” or “the Defenses of Abdullah Ocalan.” Taken as a body of ideology these writings translated into Kurmanji, Sorani, German, French, English, Spanish and Farsi from Turkish for the theoretical basis for the military and political objectives of the Party. 

SCENE XXXII  

Kobani (Ayn al-Arab),   

Rojava Region, Northern Syria, 2014ce  

***  

Kobani—also known as Ayn al-Arab—lies to the east of the Euphrates River.  

The town had grown up around a 1912 train station built as a stop on the Ottoman Empire’s Berlin-to-Baghdad railway. The city was largely home to Armenians and Kurds and had a population of about 45,000 when Syria’s civil war began in 2011. 

In July 2012, Kurdish forces in the Y.P.G./Y.P.J./P.K.K. took over protection of the city of Kobani and all the districts around it. 

“Kobani holds a strategic position on the border with Turkey. From Kobani in the West, past Sinjar and toward Erbil in the East, lies a corridor of oil pipelines and refineries. ISIS was tapping the oil for more than $2 million per day in revenue. Control of Kobani would help solidify ISIS control of Syria’s oil fields. Locking down that revenue was part of the goal for creating the ISIS caliphate Under ISIS control, Kobani would also be a haven for recruits going south to fight in Iraq. Already over 50,000 had crossed in. The Battle of Kobani, also known as the Siege of Kobani, stands as a pivotal moment in the ongoing struggle for Kurdish autonomy and the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). From the Kurdish perspective, it represents a testament to their resilience, determination, and unwavering commitment to defend their land against tyranny and extremism.” 

Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish town in northern Syria, found itself thrust into the international spotlight in 2014 as ISIS militants launched a brutal assault on the city. What ensued was a grueling battle that would come to symbolize the broader struggle against ISIS and the Kurdish people’s fight for survival. 

On Sept. 16, ISIS forces seized a key bridge over the Euphrates. A drive with tanks and artillery captured small villages and brought ISIS to within 10 kilometers of Kobani by Sept. 20. Soon artillery fire was falling into the city. Turkey counted 130,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees streaming across the border four days later. 

Up to 4,000 ISIS fighters were advancing in parts of the city. Countering them was a determined force of fighters, starting with groups of Syrian Kurds. They were soon joined by Peshmerga, official Kurdish forces of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, and numerous other groups. Kobani’s defenders were in trouble, though. ISIS took an important hill from the YPG—Kurdish militia in Syria—on Sept. 26. The momentum could overwhelm the city. Brazen ISIS forces behaved like an army moving freely, out in the open on the roads and arid terrain. 

For the Kurds, Kobani was more than just a strategic location; it was a symbol of their identity and aspirations for self-determination. The town served as a beacon of hope for Kurds everywhere, a bastion of resistance against forces bent on eradicating their culture and way of life. As ISIS forces advanced, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) rallied to defend Kobani, drawing on their guerrilla warfare tactics and fierce determination. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, they refused to yield, vowing to fight to the last breath to protect their homeland. 

The battle for Kobani was characterized by intense urban warfare, with ISIS militants employing tactics of terror and brutality in their attempts to capture the city. However, the Kurds, bolstered by their strong sense of solidarity and unity, stood firm, repelling wave after wave of attacks. 

The resilience of the Kurdish fighters drew widespread admiration and support from around the world, with volunteers flocking to join the ranks of the YPG and YPJ. Kurdish forces received crucial air support from the US-led coalition, which carried out airstrikes targeting ISIS positions and supply lines. 

The battle for Kobani raged on for months, exacting a heavy toll on both sides. The city lay in ruins, its streets littered with the debris of war and the scars of conflict etched into its buildings. Yet, amidst the devastation, the spirit of the Kurdish people remained unbroken. Finally, after months of fierce fighting, the tide began to turn in favor of the Kurds. With the support of coalition airstrikes and reinforcements, they succeeded in driving ISIS militants out of Kobani, dealing a significant blow to the terrorist organization’s ambitions in the region. 

The liberation of Kobani was a moment of triumph for the Kurdish people, a testament to their courage, resilience, and unwavering commitment to freedom. It was a victory not just for the residents of Kobani, but for Kurds everywhere who had long yearned for a homeland where they could live in peace and dignity. However, the battle for Kobani also came at a great cost. Thousands of lives were lost, and the city lay in ruins, its infrastructure devastated by the violence. The scars of war would take years to heal, and the memory of those who sacrificed their lives in defense of Kobani would never be forgotten. In the aftermath of the battle, the Kurds faced the daunting task of rebuilding their shattered city and reclaiming their lives. Despite the challenges that lay ahead, they remained steadfast in their determination to build a better future for themselves and future generations. 

The Battle of Kobani serves as a powerful reminder of the Kurdish people’s resilience in the face of adversity and their unwavering commitment to freedom and justice. It is a chapter in their long and tumultuous history that will be remembered for generations to come, a testament to the indomitable spirit of a people who refuse to be silenced or oppressed. 

*** 

The streets of Kobani were a labyrinth of destruction and defiance, where every corner held the echoes of a city once vibrant, now scarred by the relentless onslaught of war. Islamic State militants had laid siege to this Kurdish town for months, seeking to crush its spirit and claim it as their own. But the Kurds, fierce and determined, had refused to yield. 

Amidst the rubble-strewn alleys and crumbling buildings, a small group of Kurdish fighters moved with calculated precision. They were led by Baran, a seasoned commander with weathered features that spoke of countless battles fought and survived. His eyes, steely and unwavering, scanned the horizon as he led his comrades towards a strategic position overlooking a key intersection. Suddenly, the crackle of gunfire erupted from a nearby building. Baran instinctively signaled his team to take cover, their movements fluid and practiced. Bullets whizzed overhead, kicking up debris and sending puffs of dust into the air. The staccato rhythm of AK-47s mingled with the shouts of militants, their voices laced with fanaticism and hatred. 

“Keep it low! Return the fire!” Baran barks, his voice cutting through the chaos. His fighters responded with disciplined bursts of gunfire, aiming for the flashes of movement behind makeshift barricades. The air fills with the acrid scent of gunpowder as the skirmish intensifies. 

Across the street, a group of Islamic State fighters sought to advance, using burnt-out vehicles and crumbling walls as cover. They moved with a deadly efficiency, their intent clear: to overrun the Kurdish position and tighten the noose around their defenses. 

Baran gritted his teeth, his mind racing with tactics honed through years of guerrilla warfare. He gestured to one of his fighters, a young woman named Leyla, her braided hair peeking out from under a worn-out keffiyeh. “Leyla, cover our flank. Hassan, suppress their fire!” 

Without hesitation, Leyla sprinted towards a nearby building, her movements swift and silent. She took up position on the second floor, peering through a shattered window. Below, she could see the militants’ movements, their black flags fluttering in the wind like ominous shadows. 

Taking careful aim, Leyla squeezed the trigger of her rifle, sending precise shots towards the advancing fighters. One militant fell with a cry, clutching his leg in agony. The others scrambled for cover, momentarily disrupted by the sudden onslaught from an unexpected angle. Meanwhile, Hassan unleashed a torrent of bullets towards the militants’ position, forcing them to keep their heads down and buy precious moments for his comrades to reposition and regroup. But the lull in the gunfire was short-lived. With a renewed fervor, the Islamic State fighters launched a counterattack. They surged forward, shouting battle cries that reverberated through the war-torn streets. Baran’s team braced themselves, their hearts pounding with a mixture of adrenaline and determination. 

The battle became a deadly dance of tactics and tenacity, each side pushing the other to the brink of exhaustion. The clatter of gunfire mingled with the distant rumble of artillery, a constant reminder of the larger war raging beyond Kobani’s borders. 

Baran gritted his teeth as he fired off rounds, his movements fluid and precise. His mind raced, calculating each move, and anticipating the enemy’s next maneuver. Sweat trickled down his brow, mixing with the dust and grime of battle. 

Suddenly, a grenade sailed through the air, landing with a thud amidst Baran’s team. Without hesitation, he shouted a warning, diving for cover as the explosion ripped through the air with a deafening roar. Shrapnel sprayed across the street, sending shards of metal and concrete flying in all directions. 

Miraculously, Baran and his fighters emerged unscathed, their ears ringing from the blast. They exchanged quick glances, wordlessly reaffirming their resolve to fight on. Around them, the battlefield lay in tatters—a testament to the ferocity of their resistance and the brutality of their adversaries. 

As the smoke cleared and the echoes of gunfire faded into the distance, Baran surveyed the scene with a mix of weariness and grim satisfaction. The Islamic State fighters, their advance stalled and their ranks thinned, began to retreat under the cover of smoke and confusion. 

“We hold this ground,” Baran declared, his voice firm despite the fatigue that weighed heavily upon him. His comrades nodded in silent agreement; their faces streaked with sweat and determination. 

And so, amidst the ruins of Kobani, where the scars of battle ran deep and the wounds of war were still raw, the Kurdish fighters stood defiant. They had faced the onslaught of the Islamic State with courage and resilience, turning the tide of battle one bullet, one grenade, one hard-won victory at a time. 

*** 

The Siege of Kobanî was launched by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on 13 September 2014, to capture the Kobanî Canton and its main city of Kobanî (also known as Kobanê or Ayn al-Arab) in northern Syria, in the de facto autonomous region of Rojava. By 2nd October 2014, the Islamic State had succeeded in capturing 350 Kurdish villages and towns in the vicinity of Kobanê, generating a wave of some 300,000 Kurdish refugees, who fled across the border into Turkey‘s Şanlıurfa Province. By January 2015, this had risen to 400,000. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and some Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions (under the Euphrates Volcano joint operations room), Peshmerga of the Kurdistan Regional Government, and American and US-allied Arab militaries airstrikes began to mount a last-minute defense. 

For the next 112 days the world watched as the Kurdish forces defended the city street by street-by-street block by block in horrific bloody street fighting. Waves upon waves of Daesh truck bombs blowing young men and women apart. It was believed that the outnumbered and outgunned Free Syrian Army, Peshmerga, Y.P.G. and Y.P.J. were doomed and would be quickly annihilated. The Islamic State advanced with precision and with incredible confidence. In several prongs they attacked Kobane City murdering everyone standing in their way. Some people put them naked in cages, then burned them alive. Some they gang raped, some they scalped, beheaded or others they burned alive in cages. 

In the ISIS mythology anyone killed by a female fighter is denied the glory of martyrdom, so they savagely set on any female defenders they captured. In many ways, every horrific thing you might associate with the Syrian Civil War came from the Islamic State, or the Assad Regime and or the Russians. But the brutality Daesh is known for, they recorded it gleefully. They broadcast it freely. They made it sleek for replay in dark corners of the internet. And, on the screens of Western TV. 

In a Report by American Air Force analyst Rebecca Grant: 

“When the so-called Islamic State set its sights on Kobani, Syria, in mid-September 2014—encircling Kurdish fighters there—then-Secretary of State John Kerry warned that the city couldn’t be saved. As Turkish tank crews watched tensely from across the border, the US Air Force and coalition air power went into action, making supply drops and hitting surrounding ISIS forces with bombs dropped from B-1B bombers.  

The 112-day siege proved to be the turning point in America’s commitment to fighting in Syria, and a battle lab for dynamic air and ground tactics.” 

Mosul, Iraq, fell to ISIS in June 2014. Three months later, ISIS fighters were battling Iraqi forces less than 25 miles from Baghdad. The fall of either Baghdad or Damascus would have sent a theological signal to an even greater number of foreign volunteers to enlist. At the time of Kobane, it was widely understood by the intelligence community that over 50,000 foreign fighters had joined ISIS. Largely entering through Turkey.  

US and coalition airpower intervened, releasing 1,200 weapons in strikes during August and September 2014. 

“As you know, this has been an important week for the US and our coalition forces as we began air strikes in Syria,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Sept. 26. US and Arab allies carried out 43 air strikes into Syria, he reported. 

The first US airstrikes near Kobani began on Sept. 27. Air Force F-15Es struck an ISIS command and control center; a typical target for that phase of the campaign. Also in action were aircraft from the carrier USS George H. W. Bush. For the next two weeks, coalition air strikes continued, but only in small doses. Coalition planners struggled to pinpoint suitable targets and to work with Kobani’s defenders. By Sept. 30, the Pentagon reported 76 airstrikes in Syria, mostly near Kobani. 

Washington was in shock. The Intelligence Community and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper “acknowledged that they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” President Barack Obama told “60 Minutes” on Sept. 30, 2014. 

Defending Kobani would take a direct US commitment to defeating ISIS in Syria. While US and coalition partners were pledged to chase ISIS out of Iraq, Syrian policy was another matter. Fighting for Kobani meant more intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, more air strikes, and forging a relationship with groups of Syrian Kurds as new partners on the ground. 

“You can’t defend Kobani, Baghdad, Mosul, Erbil, and Sinjar,” as well as conduct strikes “against the Islamic State in places such as Raqqa, with a limited number of ISR orbits to collect necessary intelligence,” a senior Pentagon official told Kate Brannen of Foreign Policy on Oct. 7. 

Although the coalition apportioned air strikes to the beleaguered town, pessimism prevailed. A total of 135 air strikes had been carried out on Kobani targets by Oct. 9. “The US has now struck Kobani more than any other target except the Mosul dam,” Jim Sciutto of CNN tweeted on Oct. 9, 2014. 

Still, Washington wavered. The Obama administration had committed publicly and at the United Nations to pursuing ISIS through Iraq. What about Syria 

“As horrific as it is to watch in real time what is happening in Kobani … you have to step back and understand the strategic objective,” Kerry said at a news conference in Washington with Philip Hammond, Britain’s foreign secretary. 

“We are trying to deprive ISIS of the overall ability to wage [war], not just in Kobani but throughout Syria and into Iraq,” Kerry added. 

“No Can Do” screamed Time magazine’s headline on the prospects of saving Kobani. 

“The US has been restricted in its ability to battle ISIS for two reasons: it waited for months before taking action, and then—per Obama’s orders—it decided not to commit any US ground troops to the fight,” Mark Thompson wrote in Time on Oct. 9, 2014. Katherine Wilkens of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace called Kobani “A Kurdish Alamo.” 

“In a coalition where most of Washington’s regional partners are primarily focused on regime change in Syria, the jihadist attack on Kobani offers a test case of whether the United States can get its partners to temporarily set aside their other priorities and act effectively against the Islamic State,” Wilkens wrote in an Oct. 10, 2014, piece. 

NATO allies such as the Netherlands and Belgium were deploying forces to join the coalition, and France was already in the fight. For the time being, their parliaments had restricted air strikes to territory in Iraq only. Ultimately, Bahrain, Britain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE air forces participated alongside the US providing air support for Kobani. 

Airpower was the main tool available. “Just to remind, there’s not going to be a US ground combat role here,” Rear Adm. John Kirby, Pentagon spokesman, said on Oct. 10, 2014. “I’m putting that out very clearly.” 

As for airpower, some doubted its effectiveness, given the slipping situation. 

“I don’t know what’s going to happen because, again, in the absence of any ground force there, it is going to be difficult just through airpower to prevent ISIS from potentially taking over the town,” then-Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken told NBC News on Oct. 13. 

Air strikes were, however, having an effect. The attacks quickly constricted the mobility of ISIS forces. “Before the air strikes happened, they pretty much had free rein,” admitted Kirby. “They don’t have that free rein anymore, because they know we’re watching from the air.” 

ISIS forces got better at concealment, according to Kirby. 

Two types of air strikes were underway. First was dynamic targeting of what Kirby called “mobile assets on the ground.” These included tanks, command posts, even trucks used in the oil smuggling. Deliberate, pre-planned targeting also went against “fixed targets, a headquarters building, command and control nodes, a finance center, oil refineries.” The idea was to prevent ISIS from consolidating its gains. 

However, a sprinkling of strikes wasn’t going to be enough. ISIS forces and tanks advanced closer to the center of Kobani on Oct. 10. A spasm of suicide vehicle bombings followed as ISIS fighters tried to dislodge Kurdish strongpoints. 

Both sides were now determined to prevail. 

Saudi Arabia joined US fighters and bombers striking ISIS targets southwest of Kobani on Oct. 13. 

“Rather than the bombing prompting a tactical retreat” by ISIS units, “they appear to have doubled down in their quest for Kobani,” observed Derek Flood, a journalist who was in Turkey on Oct. 15, 2014. As American air strikes rapidly increased in and around Kobani, ISIS fighters “ushered in reinforcements from their reservoir of recruits in al-Raqqa and Aleppo and ramped up their employment of vehicle-borne suicide bombers,” Flood wrote in the CTC Sentinel, West Point’s counterterrorism journal, in November 2014. 

For ISIS, too, this was chosen ground. It clearly mattered to ISIS, Kirby said, “because they kept presenting themselves there and presenting targets.” 

In fact, the air strikes put Kobani in the global spotlight. For the US and coalition partners, Kobani was on the verge of becoming a major failure. 

Across the border, Turkish tanks lined up to keep a wary watch. Turkish civilians could see the fighting in Kobani from the town of Suruc on their side of the border. 

ISIS fighters took over key checkpoints then a key outlying overlooking hill. And then drove the Kurdish defenders out of a key defensible school building. Defeat looks inevitable. 

With Kobani nearly defeated, Washington made its move. NATO ally Turkey had entered the anti-ISIS coalition on Oct. 2. Now Turkey agreed to allow resupply to the Kurds to sustain the fight in Kobani. Washington placed its bet on airpower. 

On Oct. 20, three USAF C-130s conducted multiple airdrops to resupply Kurdish forces, defending the city. In the airdrops were 24 tons of small arms and ammunition. The airdrops also included 10 tons of medical supplies. Kurdish authorities in Iraq provided the supplies, according to Central Command. As the operation progressed, Operation Inherent Resolve would log over 1.4 million pounds of supplies airdropped from August to December of 2014. From a strategic perspective, there was hope. 

“For its campaign against Kobane, [ISIS] has converged en masse for a conventional attack upon a fixed geographic point,” observed Jill Sargent Russell of Kings College London. While ISIS “might momentarily hold an advantage against any concerted defense with effective fire support, they are weak and soft targets,” she pointed out in an Oct. 20, 2014, comment to Britain’s Daily Telegraph. 

“Suddenly, the fight for this little-known town took on vast symbolic significance,” wrote Fred Kaplan in Slate on Oct. 31, 2014. “And if ISIS was telling the world that Kobani was a decisive battle along the path to the Islamic State’s victory, then Obama—who’d put American resources and credibility on the line—had little choice but to treat it as a decisive battle as well,” Kaplan assessed. 

By early November, ISIS was failing to gain new ground. Four attempts to take a border crossing with Turkey had failed. ISIS called for reinforcements. So did the Kurdish fighters. Backed by steady US and coalition airpower, the Kurdish groups were securing their foothold in Kobani. 

ISIS controlled about 60 percent of Kobani as of Nov. 5, 2014. It would prove to be their high-water mark. 

The decision to assist Kobani marked a change in the US strategy in Syria. Now the US had to “deliver on helping develop a trained, moderate opposition in Syria that has the requisite leadership and military skills to actually go ahead and defend territory inside Syria,” as Kirby explained at the Pentagon. 

What followed was two months of street-by-street fighting. For US airpower, the problem was that ISIS fighters had wrapped themselves around the city and what was left of its civilian population. 

It was up to a combination of ISR and battlefield input from the Kurds to outline areas for strikes. As the force on the ground improved tactically, so did its use of airpower. Open supply lines from Turkey also had a significant effect. 

US and coalition aircraft striking Kobani faced a long flight from deployed bases. They also had to fly past Syria’s air defenses. Syria’s integrated air defense system usually looked westward, toward Israel, and coalition aircraft operated in the East. Yet the threats were real. 

American F-22s in-theater helped quarterback the strike packages. Aircraft such as B-1 bombers, F-15E and F-16 fighters, and others carried electronic warfare systems able to process and jam signals. The B-1s were especially good at dealing with electronic threats. 

Dynamic targeting was sharpened during the siege of Kobani. Joint Tactical Air Controllers rarely deployed with the Kurds. Instead, they employed ISR to watch the fight. As targets developed, JTACS did collateral damage estimates and forwarded targeting. Sometimes cell phones were part of the process. 

Lt. Gen. John W. Hesterman III, then-commander of US Air Forces Central Command, explained that the vast majority of dynamic targeting strikes were “well away from friendly troops in contact. And we use a multitude of sources to initially ID the enemy and communicate what we see. Then JTACS in operations centers do a collateral damage estimate and then we deconflict friendlies. And when that’s done, a senior officer clears the sortie.” 

“You know, the average time for those strikes, by the way, is measured in minutes, not hours, or even halves of hours.” 

By far the single largest amount of ordnance pounding ISIS targets in Kobani came from B-1 bombers, which dropped 1,700 precision guided weapons on Kobani during the siege. 

“Bones” from the 9th Bomb Squadron at Dyess AFB, Texas, deployed to Qatar in July 2014 expecting six months of long combat overwatch flights to and from Afghanistan’s airspace. They had been used consistently since 2001 to loiter and drop bombs, provide overflights, or simply keep watch. Previously, in Afghanistan, the 9th Bomb Squadron’s B-1 crews found it could take four to five hours to develop and strike a target. 

In 2013, they had dropped just 93 bombs in Afghanistan over six months. 

At Kobani, the intensity of the fight ratcheted up. “It was a massive shift in rules of engagement,” said Lt. Col. Erick Lord, the 9th BS commander, to Military.com in a January 2018 interview. 

In Kobani, “It was just go! Blow everything up,” Lord said. 

“It was an urban environment, so there were a lot of buildings,” Maj. Charles Kilchrist told the website. 

“We had jets there every single day for 24 hours a day. Along with the F-15E Strike Eagles,” he said. 

An F-16 pilot described her missions over Kobani. Especially after night sorties, dawn would break over the deserted town. It looked “like a moonscape,” she said. 

One ongoing concern was interference from Syria’s Air Force. This F-16 pilot appreciated how F-22s often just took care of air superiority and let the F-16s concentrate on air-to-groundwork. 

Maintaining air patrols over Kobani meant six or more hours on station. Depending on what happened, fighters were often rerouted back into Iraq to refuel. 

The F-15s and B-1s would tag each other, handing off targeting coordinates as they rotated in and out for the days-long watch. 

“We were just bombing them back, and back, and back … to the West, and [ISIS] would try to sneak around to the South, and then we would see them, and … it was just a huge battle,” Kilchrist said. 

On the ground, the arrival of Iraqi Kurd Peshmerga troops brought forces with experience in coordinating US air strikes. 

“There were times we were bombing across the street, and as soon as the weapons were going off, they are charging into the rubble to take out what’s left and move forward that line of troops to the next block,” one B-1 pilot told Air Force Times. “It’s an amazing job the [Kurdish forces] did and how they are, more so than air- power, critical to victory in Kobani.” 

The B-1s went Winchester—dropping their entire bomb load in one mission—a total of 31 times in the fight for Kobani. That was a credit to smooth air-ground coordination. Typically, crews would release weapons on individual targets throughout several hours. 

“The more they [ISIS] try to act like an army … they just reinforce failure, and we kill them at a very great rate,” concluded Hesterman. 

“They were very willing to impale themselves on that city,” one B-1 crew member told Air Force Times. 

On Jan. 19, 2015, Kurdish YPG fighters stormed Mistanour Hill. Kobani was declared fully liberated about a week later. 

The transcript continues: 

“The “air strikes helped a lot. It helped when we had a reliable partner on the ground in there who could help us fine-tune those strikes,” Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon on Jan. 27. 

Kobani was a significant defeat for ISIS. It lost personnel, territory, and its command-and-control safe haven. The ISIS plan to mass and exert military force over the city fell apart. 

CNN reported ISIS fighters withdrew from Kobani because “we no longer had places to hold there,” an ISIS fighter said. “We were inside Ayn al-Arab and we occupied more than 70 percent, but the air strikes did not leave any building standing, they destroyed everything.” The targets even included motorcycles; he added. 

Also in late January, Hagel announced the US would begin to train and arm Syrian opposition forces. The success of combining Kurd ground forces and coalition airpower at Kobani had proved the concept. 

Then-USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh acknowledged that his service flew about 60 percent of the sorties in the air war against ISIS. However, he shrugged off the credit. 

“The DOD approach is not to defeat ISIS from the air. The intent is to inhibit ISIS, to attrition ISIS, to slow ISIS down, to give the ground force time to be trained because the ground force will be required,” Welsh said in a State of the Air Force press conference on Jan. 15, 2015. 

Holding Kobani was not the end of the ISIS fight. It took a huge acceleration of air strikes from 2015 through 2017 to secure Iraq and bottle up the worst of ISIS. The weapons release count for Operation Inherent Resolve reached 106,808 at the end of 2017. 

However, at Kobani, airpower again stepped in as the workable option in a foreign policy crisis, with lives on the line and the world watching. As with Bosnia, Kosovo, and the early days of Afghanistan, allies found their airmen provided a way to fight. 

Concluded one B-1 crewman: “I look forward to telling my grandkids that I got to help these people and to defend their homes.” 

“On 26 January 2015, the YPG and its allies, backed by the continued US-led airstrikes, began to retake the city, driving ISIS into a steady retreat. The city of Kobanê was fully recaptured on 27 January; however, most of the remaining villages in the Kobanî Canton remained under ISIL control. The YPG and its allies then made rapid advances in rural Kobanî, with ISILS withdrawing 25 km from the city of Kobanî by 2 February.”  

“By late April 2015, ISIS had lost almost all of the villages it had captured in the Canton but maintained control of a few dozen villages it seized in the northwestern part of the Raqqa Governorate. In late June 2015, ISS launched a new offensive against the city, killing at least 233 civilians, but were quickly driven back. The battle for Kobanî was considered a turning point in the war against Islamic State and the beginning of official collaboration between the United States of America, the single largest military force on earth and the Kurdistan Workers Party, considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, American and virtually every major country in NATO.” 

“This was also the beginning of the PKK-American alliance lacking any other credible ground force to take on ISIS; a leading imperialist hegemon shortly after began training and funding one of the last important leftist guerrilla groups left standing after the cold war, as long as they could work under a front; and the name of that front become the “SYRIAN DEMOCRATIC FORCES.” 

By the time the SDF had successfully rebuilt most of the City by December of 2024, the Turkish army was massing for the second battle of Kobani. This time there was no American air support. 

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