cannot now be captured by the fighters of Isis but a million people in
another Kurdish enclave in Syria are facing a mounting threat of being
massacred or forced to flee by advancing jihadis, according to the
Kurdish guerrilla leader overseeing the defence of Syrian Kurds.
In an exclusive interview with The Independent in his
headquarters in the Kandil mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan, Cemil Bayik,
the top field commander of the PKK, the Kurdish guerrilla organisation
in Turkey, and also of its Syrian affiliate, says: “Kobani will not
fall. We are advancing on the eastern and southern fronts.”
He said that the Syrian Kurdish fighters had succeeded in “taking
back the municipal building and Isis was forced to blow up a mosque it
held”.
He added that US jets were regularly bombing the top of the strategic
hill overlooking Kobani through which Isis fighters first entered the
city. But the fighters “disappear into houses on the hillside when the
bombing is going on and reoccupy their positions later.” Other reports
suggest that Isis holds half the city after a siege of 63 days.
Mr Bayik says there is a growing danger to the Kurdish enclave or
canton of Afrin, 120 miles to the west of Kobani which has a population
of one million people, including 200,000 refugees. The Syrian al-Qaeda
branch, Jabhat al-Nusra, after defeating more moderate Syrian rebels in
recent weeks, is moving towards Afrin.
“They are approaching its borders,” says Mr Bayik. “They are calling
villagers by telephone, saying, ‘Runaway or we will kill you’. Like Isis
they use psychological war, first creating panic among the people and
then attacking.”
Mr Bayik accuses Turkey of having covert links with Jabhat al-Nusra
and encouraging the jihadis to threaten Afrin. It is one of three Syrian
Kurdish enclaves, all strung along Syria’s border with Turkey, and all
of which have come under attack from jihadis.
He says that if Kobani falls or Jabhat al-Nusra attacks then “it will
no longer be possible for the peace process to go on with Turkey”, and
the 18-month-old ceasefire which started in March 2013 may end. He
believes that Turkey has sufficient influence over Jabhat al-Nusra to
prevent it attacking Afrin. “Kurds will not accept Kobani and Afrin
being under threat of genocide and massacre.”
Even if the ceasefire does not end, the siege of Kobani has provoked
anger among the 15 million Turkish Kurds against their government whom
they accuse of aiding Isis. Protests and rioting provoked by fear that
Kobani was about to fall in early October left some 44 people dead. A
similar threat to Afrin would probably lead to outbursts of rage from
the 30 million Kurds in the region who live mostly in Turkey, Iraq, Iran
and Syria.
The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said that Isis is no
worse than the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party) or PYD (the
Syrian-Kurdish Democratic Union Party), though on 20 October Turkey
agreed under American pressure to allow Iraqi-Kurdish Peshmerga forces
to reinforce Kobani.
While international attention has been focused on the fate of Kobani,
the Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar by Isis, whose fate helped fuel
public support for US air strikes in August, are under renewed pressure.
The jihadis have once more cut all roads leading to their mountain.
Mr Bayik, who has guerrilla fighters on the mountain, agreed that
there was a greater danger of Sinjar falling to Isis than Kobani.
“There are 10,000 people on the mountain and they are in need of
everything from food to medical care,” said Mr Bayik. “Winter is coming
and Isis is attacking once more.”
He
added that Sinjar is strategically important because it is close to
important road links: “If you hold this area, you can control the roads
between Iraq and Syria and cut Isis’s communications between the two
countries.” He said the Yazidis trapped on the mountain, which they
regard as holy, needed to be resupplied by plane or helicopter or a
corridor should be driven through Isis positions so the Yazidis could be
reinforced or evacuated.
Mr Bayik is careful to stress that the PYD and the YPG, the People’s
Defence Units, are not directly controlled by him, though he heads the
PKK umbrella organisation, the KCK, which unites PKK affiliates in
different countries. All follow the same leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who
has been in prison in Turkey for 15 years, and they are organised along
similar lines. A further reason for Mr Bayik to put distance between
himself and the PYD is that the US has labelled the PKK, but not its
Syrian affiliate, a “terrorist” organisation. Mr Bayik says: “The PKK is
not in touch with the Americans directly but the YPG and PYD are.”
The battle for Kobani and the PKK’s role in helping the Yazidis
trapped on Mount Sinjar resist Isis has increased the movement’s
popularity and prestige among Kurds in Turkey and elsewhere. The
determination of their fighters to resist Isis successfully is in
contrast to the failure of the Iraqi army, Syrian army, Syrian rebels
and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga, all of whom had been routed over the last
five months by the jihadis. Although the number of male and female
fighters in Kandil has been put at only between 3,000 and 5,000, they
are having a significant impact on the politics of the region.
The Kurds complain that they are the nation which was the prime
victim of the Sykes-Picot agreement that left them without a state. But
they have been playing an increasing role in the region. The defeat of
Saddam Hussein by a US-led coalition in 1991 and again in 2003 allowed
the Iraqi Kurds to create a quasi-independent state more powerful than
many members of the United Nations.
The PKK has fought an on-off guerrilla war with the Turkish army
since 1984 and, while it has failed to create liberated zones, the
Turkish state has failed to eliminate it. The 2.2 million Syrian Kurds
were a persecuted and largely invisible minority, 10 per cent of the
Syrian population, until the Syrian civil war. In July 2012 the Syrian
army pulled out of Kurdish areas in northern Syria, allowing the
creation of three autonomous enclaves centred on the towns of Qamishli,
Kobani and Afrin. Somewhat to their own surprise the Syrian Kurds became
important players in the Syrian civil war. When Isis attacked the Iraqi
Kurds this August, they too began to play a central role in the US-led
campaign against Isis.
There are some signs that the US campaign is beginning to have some
impact, with the Iraqi army fighting its way into the refinery town of
Baiji today. This is still some way from the refinery itself, which is
the largest in Iraq and has been fought over since the first Isis
onslaught in June. Isis may be feeling the strain of fighting on too
many fronts in Syria and Iraq and having diverted many of its fighters
to Kobani where they are vulnerable to US air strikes.
Mr Bayik confirmed that Kurds in Kobani are in direct contact with
the US air force in order to call in air strikes: “If there were no
contacts or people on the ground to give co-ordinates then the US would
not be able to send arms and ammunition or carry out bombing missions.”
He says that the US air drop of arms and ammunition on 19 October was
of immense value to the defenders because of its effect on their
morale. Other sources say the Kurds were close to running out of
ammunition.
Mr Bayik sees much of what happens in the region through the prism of
Turkish-Kurd relations and is convinced Turkey has a strong influence
over Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra and has been able to manipulate them
against the Kurds. This may be overstated, though Turkey’s tolerance of
jihadis crossing from Turkey into Syria between 2011 and 2013 was a
factor in strengthening Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra. Mystery also reigns
over why 46 Turkish diplomats stayed in the Turkish consulate in Mosul
when Isis captured it on 10 June and were later released by Isis in
exchange for Isis prisoners held in Turkey.
But regardless of the real level of complicity between the jihadis
and Turkey, the long struggle for Kobani has created a wave of feeling
against the Turkish government among Kurds everywhere. Small though the
siege is it compares to other sieges in history from Londonderry to
Stalingrad which have acquired significance as symbols of courage and
determination. The Kurdish belief that they won despite the best efforts
of Ankara will not create a conciliatory mood in which Turkish Kurds
might negotiate a measure of self-rule. A study just published by the
International Crisis Group called Turkey and the PKK: Saving the Peace
Process says that the process is at a turning point: “It will either
collapse as the sides squander years of work, or it will accelerate as
they commit to real convergences.”
The furious rhetoric on both Turkish and Kurdish sides because of
Kobani makes real negotiations more necessary but less likely. The PKK
accuses the Turkish state of being hand-in-glove with Isis, something Mr
Erdogan roundly denies. When a Turkish flag was taken down by
demonstrators during the funeral of two young Kurdish protesters in
Diyarbakir, President Erdogan said: “The fact that [the demonstrator]
was a child does not concern us. He will pay the same price as those who
sent him there.”
Whatever happens the Kurds have become the latest victims in the Syrian and Iraqi civil wars.
(Reprinted from The Independent by permission of author or representative)
