REPORT: “We have freed Kobani from ISIS”

There are multiple reports today that ISIS has been driven out of Kobani, but not by the US, but by Kurdish fighters:

TURKISH PRESS – Kobani is free of ISIL fighters and is completely under the control of opposition and Kurdish groups following four months of fighting, opposition sources and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The field commander of the Raqqa Revolutionaries, Abu Ibrahim, told The Anadolu Agency that Kobani is entirely under the control of Kurdish groups, supported by Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Free Syrian Army.

“We have freed Kobani from the ISIL fighters,” Ibrahim said. “Clashes with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant continue in the surroundings of Kobani.”

The Anadolu Agency could not independently verify the claims that Kobani is now completely free of ISIL militants.

Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad said on Jan. 20 that the US fight against ISIS in Syria has been nothing more than ‘window dressing‘:

Since the United States began its air campaign against the Islamic State, Syria and the United States have become strange kinds of partners and are effectively cooperating in that aspect of the fight. Do you see the potential for increased cooperation with the United States?

Yes, the potential is definitely always there, because we’ve been talking about or asking for international cooperation against terrorism for 30 years. But this potential needs will. The question that we have is, how much will does the United States have to really fight terrorism on the ground? So far, we haven’t seen anything concrete in spite of the attacks on ISIS in northern Syria. There’s nothing concrete. What we’ve seen so far is just, let’s say, window-dressing, nothing real. Since the beginning of these attacks, ISIS has gained more land in Syria and Iraq.

What about the air strikes on Kobani? Those have been effective in slowing down ISIS.

Kobani is a small city, with about 50,000 inhabitants. It’s been more than three months since the beginning of the attacks, and they haven’t finished. Same areas, same al Qaeda factions occupying them—the Syrian army liberated in less than three weeks. It means they’re not serious about fighting terrorism.

Normally i wouldn’t listen to someone like Assad for this kind of opinion, but the truth is we all know he’s right on this one. Obama’s war against ISIS is phony.


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