GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Kurdish fighters, aided by a barrage of U.S.-led airstrikes, drove the Islamic State from the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani earlier this week. The U.S. applauded the news, and Kurds across the border in Turkey danced in the streets.
But some Syrians say there’s little to celebrate as the regime of President Bashar Assad continues to drop barrel bombs on its citizens –- without any meaningful U.S. response — and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, tightens its grip elsewhere in Syria.
U.S. officials have told The WorldPost that Kobani was a critical battle for Washington. Pushing the Islamic State from the border town, they say, was a way to tackle the militants at a higher level by taking direct aim at their chief asset: their narrative of invincibility. Military commanders also noted that Kobani was a significant hub of Islamic State forces, which the U.S.-led coalition sought to identify and then target with airstrikes. Indeed, since September, close to 75 percent of coalition airstrikes have been aimed at Kobani and the surrounding areas.
However, a number of Syrians told The WorldPost that the significance of Kobani was being overstated.
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Hussein read of a long list of things his fighters have received from the Americans: cars, trucks, tents, bulldozers, medicine and communication devices. And he claims his fighters have U.S.-made TOW anti-tank missiles, provided by another country he declined to name. Still, the U.S. hasn’t directly provided the weaponry it promised.
Now, he’s confronted with the news that the U.S. might be shifting its position by downplaying its earlier demands for Assad to step down. If that became official U.S. policy, Abu Hussein says, he’d change his own position and refuse to work with the Americans at all.
“We want [U.S.] training to fight our number one enemy: the Assad regime,” he said. “We wouldn’t collaborate with any support not [meant] for fighting the regime.”
Zaher Said contributed reporting from Gaziantep and Akbar Shahid Ahmed contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
