A first-person report received on October 12th, 2014.
I wanted to share some knowledge about what’s happening and what happened around here.
IS (Islamic State) attacks to Kobane city in Rojava (means West Kurdistan in Kurdish) as everybody knows. But I want to explain why there is this organization Islamic State, how it is founded. So maybe everything can be clearer.
We can say history of ISIS begins with Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who organizes the strongest resistance against USA and Coalition troops in Iraq. Actually he is from Jordan, city called Zarqa, so he took this name “Zarqawi”.
In Jordan he was in a Salafi and jihadist organization and he was imprisoned with his comrades because of this. Why Jordan state doesn’t want a Salafi-jihadist organization? 1- Salafi organizations against Human Laws (Constitution), just the Allah Laws (Quran) must be applied. So also they are against democracy and election. 2- Jihadist organizations against Western Block and Israel. But Jordan is the most domesticated collaborator of the Western Block and Israel.
After he went out from prison he didn’t want to get in the Jordan prisons, so he moved to Afghanistan to train militants. But in 2001 USA invaded Afghanistan so he had to move with his comrades to Iraq to organize a Salafi organization in Iraq.
Slowly slowly they got contacts etc. And on 2003 USA also invaded Iraq and gave power to Shia power, so Shia’s stopped resisting immediately. And Sunni’s resistance started.
Why formed a great hatred between Shia and Sunni? It is not just because of religious practices. It was always different, why now? We need to look to invasion and how USA changed the balances. Who resists most was them (Salafists who come from Sunni regions) and old Baas (Saddam, and also Sunni) soldiers-militants.
For the last 10 years (2004-2014) Sunni cities, villages was bombed by the Coalition; Salafist Sunnis was in the USA prisons like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo… So why now there is this ISIS we have to look to these facts. And why for the last 10 years it turned to a ‘Religious Sect Wars’ between Shia and Sunni.
Zarqawi was a guy full of anger and a militant. He had also this hatred against Shia. He organized lots of bomb attacks in markets of Shia neighbourhoods and mosques. They don’t recognize western values like ‘Humanism’, ‘Civilians’. To critic them, do not critic with these values. Why are they killing-torturing those who are irrelevant to cruelty? Why are they killing irrelevant Ezidi, Christian, Alawi people just because they ARE? This is the problem. Kill who supports the cruelty with his money, weapon or knowledge.
So Zarqawi’s organization joins to Al-Qaeda in 2004 and names as ‘Al-Qaeda Iraq’. Actually Al-Qaeda doesn’t like these attacks like bombing Shia mosques etc. because Al-Qaeda is a ‘Global Jihad’ organization, not an ‘Anti-Shia’ organization. But it was like an alliance. So they accepted.
Zarqawi was killed in 2006 in a drone attack. After Zarqawi this organization changed into ‘Islamic State of Iraq’. Their way also changed into less ‘Global Jihad’ to more ‘Local Islamic State’.
Until Syrian Civil War (2011) they continued like that. And beginning of 2014 they declared ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Sham’. Al-Qaeda center opposed to that, they didn’t recognize. Because Al-Qaeda had already a group in Syria (Al-Nusra Front).
Also Al-Qaeda were really against in the beginning to ISIS because ISIS is a kind of lunatic organization, I can say. In Syria they killed really lots of people just because they are ‘Alawi’ (Asad’s Regime’s religion). Or just because some Sunni Villages (not Shia or Christian) didn’t obey them (for example don’t want to give taxes), ISIS says these villages are not Muslim anymore! So they can kill them, and killing them.
ISIS captured the territory of Syria mostly from the Opposition powers, not from the Syrian Regime (Asad). There were huge fights especially with Al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda), but now they seem to make a ceasefire. Now ISIS attacks ‘Islamic Front’ (people say it is Saudi Arabia supported) and Rojava (West Kurdistan-PYD). Afterwards I want to explain Kurdistan situation.
Maybe it is important also why there is this anger against ‘Alawi’ and ‘Asad’ regime in Syria. ‘Bashar Asad’ and his father ‘Hafez Asad’ is a Baas supporter. ‘Secularism’, ‘Arab Nationalism’, ‘Close to Soviets’ those times, ‘Social State’ etc. And there was an incredible pressure on Sunni organizations of Syria for the last 40 years. There is a huge Hama Massacre in 1982 against Muslim Brotherhood of Syria.
There is a story that a Syrian told me about ‘Hafez Asad’. Hafez Asad captured a leader of Muslim Brotherhood and he didn’t kill him. Injected something to his blood and this leader became a lunatic! This kind of tortures there was for the last 40 years. I went there 4 years ago (for touristic reasons actually), and nobody wanted to talk about the Asad family, everybody was afraid. So look what happened now.
So we came to today. Syrian war is almost balanced nowadays, so you can look to the map: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Syrian_Civil_War_detailed_map
Islamic State mostly supported from Iraq Sunni Tribes that they fought together against USA. And also those Sunni Tribes-powers they are enjoying to have power for the first time in the last 10 years. Before 2003 they had the power in the Saddam regime. But if Coalition, USA gives more power to Sunni Tribes, these tribes can stop the support to Islamic State and Islamic State can fail. But they are so strong nowadays 30.000 soldiers they have and most of them are from Iraq and Syria. Also they have petrol, water supplies etc. They are really trying to organize a state; with police, with laws, with the control of the public, with municipality…
Ok, maybe this is the most important part. Why is Islamic State attacking to Rojava-Kobane? In the West and Kurdistan people say ‘because Rojava is building a libertarian-gender freedom society’, ‘direct democracy-autonomy’ etc. It is true in Rojava these things are happening, probably you also know.
Some powers (for example Turkish State) can really get disturbed with the changes, but motivation of Islamic State is not this stuff. Actually they are attacking everywhere. Shia, Alawi, Kurdish, Ezidi, Christian, Sunni, Arab, ‘Free Syrian Army’, ‘Islamic Front’, ‘Al-Nusra’, ‘Ahraus Sham’ (Another Salafi organization), ‘Asad Regime’, ‘Iraq Army’, ‘Barzani State’ (North Iraq) etc. etc. So they are kind of ‘Nihilist Islamic State’.
They are attacking Kobane because as you can see in the map there is not so much place to attack anymore, ‘natural borders’ nowadays. There is a kind of balance. So they want to invade wherever they can.
What PKK wants? Of course they want to save Kobane and the surrounding villages. And for this they want a safe corridor (arms, militants, other supplies etc.) from Turkey for Kobane.
For the last 2 years (end of 2012, until now) there is a ‘peace progress’ between PKK and Turkish State. And both sides don’t want to break it. But Kobane was like a ‘boiling point’ for PKK. And called a Serhıldan (Kurdish word for Intifada) for Kobane.
It was an incredible revolt; even PKK didn’t want this much. Now I will write what happened in those 2-3 days:
– 212 schools are damaged and burned. This is not a joke. Schools, yes. Kurdish youth hate schools. If you want to check videos-images, write ‘kobane okul yaktılar’ on google (means ‘kobane burned schools’). Counter-info link: sosyalsavas.org/2014/09/cizrede-uc-okul-atese-verildi (I know it’s in Turkish; just for images I’m sending. This news is of 1 month ago: again, youth burned down 3 schools in Cizre).
– 190 banks are damaged and burned. And of course ATMs.
– 340 private cars, 216 official cars are burned. If you want to check videos-images, search for ‘kobane araçları yaktılar’ (means ‘kobane burned cars’)
– Lots of supermarkets are burned down, also looted (search for ‘kobane süpermarket yakıldı’; mass-media link: mynet.com/haber/yasam/istanbulda-yagma-1493469-1).
– At least 80 official building like municipality, party bureaus, administrative buildings etc. are burned.
– 67 police stations are damaged.
Some Kurdish Hezbollah (don’t mix with the Lebanon Hezbollah, they are different) militants are killed by PKK youth. Some of them stoned to death and burned. Kurdish people are really really angry to these people because in the 90s Kurdish Hezbollah worked with state and killed really lots of PKK militants. Now they are (Hezbollah) working in legal area and still making propaganda against PKK.
And of course more than twenty Kurdish young people are killed by police and military. And in lots of cities military came to the cities, not the police. Police couldn’t control anymore.
Also lots of Turkish Flag, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (founder of Turkish Republic) statues are burned down by Kurdish youth. So, Turkish media really used this stuff against them. After these 2-3 days even PKK made a declaration that “we don’t agree actions like burning flag, statue, school, supermarket etc.; who made these are provocateurs”. Yes, PKK said something like that.
It was a huge revolt really, also because of youth was filled with anger. Because of this ‘peace progress’ and especially massacre against Ezidi people (done by the Islamic State, and they are accepting it) and finally ‘Kobane’. Also youth were organized really well actually. They were not ‘empty handed’.