The Kurds of Rojava- Syria's Other Revolution Few Have Heard Of

Documentary filmmaker Mehran Bozorgnia and producer and narrator Darius Bazargan's latest video for BBC's Our World shows a fascinating effort in northern Syria to create a multi-ethnic mini-state by Kurds. It's called Rojava- and includes mainly Kurdish areas near Aleppo, Kobane and Qamishli.

A "representative democracy based on equality, pluralism and self-sufficiency"- where all religions co-exist peacefully, and women have equal rights- is being cobbled together by a bunch of left-wing Kurdish radicals.

These are the people fighting ISIS.

Communism is a flawed system, but if they can make it work, and somehow stabilize that region, God speed.

Interview With US Army Vet Battling ISIS in Kobani

 A few brave American souls have taken it upon themselves to make the trek over to northeastern Syria to help the embattled Kurds beat ISIS.

Here is an interview with U.S. Army vet Jordan Matson, 28, who traveled from Wisconsin to Syria when he heard about the horrors ISIS was committing against Christians and minorities in Mosul, Iraq.

"For over a year, people were being slaughtered by ISIS," the 28-year-old Sturtevant, Wisconsin, native told RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq (RFI), using another acronym for IS.

"Anyone who didn't conform to their way of life could either convert, be killed, or get driven off their land. So when Mosul fell and IS drove all the Christians and minorities from the town or killed them, I thought that enough was enough and I decided to come here to fight," Matson said via Skype.

For two months, Matson has fought in northeastern Syria alongside the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). He said he decided to join the Kurdish militia after searching the Internet for a way to fight IS.

"I found that the YPG was the only force in the area that would let Christians and Muslims live in peace together so I decided to join them," he said.

Like most of the foreign Islamic jihadists, Matson entered Syria from Turkey, and has much praise for the Kurdish people. Shortly after arriving in Syria, he sustained injuries to his arm and eye during a battle in Rojava.

He related how Kurdish locals took care of him while he was recovering in the hospital. Kurdish families would visit him there, bringing food to share with him and other wounded fighters, he said.

"There's a lot of love in the community. It's something you can't really find in the United States; it's very different and I love it," Matson added.

He is now fighting in Kobani, and ever thankful for the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga troops who have entered the fray to help.

But to finish off ISIS he had this to say:

"To put an end to IS, we are going to need boots on the ground," he said. "If we increase the bombing campaign and put boots on the ground to help give support to the YPG fighters, it would help push IS back to the Syrian borders. Troops could save many lives here," Matson told RFI.

And like ISIS, Matson has been trying to recruit more fighters to help out through social media outlets. According to YPG's Kandal Amed, other foreign fighters have joined forces with the People's Protection Unit to fight ISIS.

"Foreign fighters are in all fronts with the People's Protection Units. Germans and Russians, others, wanted to be part of the new spirit that was created for the peoples of the Middle East. Among our ranks, you will find Americans, Germans, and others, all men, but we expect the arrival of foreign women, too,"

In tandem with the Iraqi Peshmerga forces, they are trying to help the Yazidis, many of whom are still stranded in Iraq's Sinjar Mountain.

"Now in the Sinjar Mountain there are families, civilians, and our comrades living in difficult humanitarian conditions. We talked to them by phone today," he said on November 5, "They suffer from the extreme cold, where during the last week about seven to eight children died because of the cold and hunger. We are now working with the Peshmerga forces to open a corridor to save these families."

RFE/RL has a video of Matson.

American Joins Kurds To Fight ISIS In Syria

Brave Brian Wilson is one of a few Americans who has been inspired to travel to Syria to help the Kurd's fight the Islamic State. He says there are Armenians, Chechens, Arabs, and Christians and Muslims fighting side by side with the YPG (Kurdish People's Protection Unit),

He says all they need are better weapons and technology. So we're arming the FSA, and other rebel Syrian groups, and those arms are probably winding up in the hands of ISIS, and used to fight the Kurds.

Video interview of him on VOA.

Dutch Biker Gang Members Fighting With Kurds Against ISIS

The Kurds in Northern Iraq are getting help from an unlikely source- Dutch motorcycle gang members. Granted, there aren't many of them, but it's something.

Though it's illegal for Dutch nationals to join any foreign army, let alone a terrorist organization like the Islamic State, Dutch authorities have said the bikers are not committing a crime, so they are being allowed to help battle ISIS.

“Joining a foreign armed force was previously punishable, now it’s no longer forbidden,” public prosecutor spokesman Wim de Bruin told AFP.

“You just can’t join a fight against the Netherlands,” he told AFP after reports emerged that Dutch bikers from the No Surrender gang were fighting ISIS insurgents alongside Kurds in northern Iraq.

The head of No Surrender, Klaas Otto, told state broadcaster NOS that three members who travelled to near Mosul in northern Iraq were from Dutch cities Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Breda.

A photograph on a Dutch-Kurdish Twitter account shows a tattooed Dutchman called Ron in military garb, holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle while sat with a Kurdish comrade.

Video footage apparently from a Kurdish broadcaster shows an armed European man with Kurdish fighters saying in Dutch: “The Kurds have been under pressure for a long time.”

The Netherlands, like other European countries are trying to prevent their citizens from joining ISIS- warning of prosecution should they choose to return- if not killed- and taking away passports so they are unable to travel in the first place.

“The big difference with ISIS is that it’s listed as a terrorist group,” said De Bruin.

“That means that even preparing to join ISIS is punishable.”

Although they can fight with some Kurds, they are not allowed to fight with the blacklisted Terrorist-designated Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Source: Al Arabiya

ISIS Video Threatens Turkey While Turkey Does Nothing To Save Kobani Border Town

One would think that Turkey would be more actively involved in aiding the Western coalition in its fight against the Islamic State (aka ISIS or ISIL), since ISIS is poised to capture the Syria/Turkey border town of Kobani. It's just a wire fence that separates Kobani from Turkey, and yet Turkey's conservative Muslim president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is doing very little to help. In fact, he's thwarting efforts by Turkish Kurds to cross the border into Syria to aid fellow Kurds in Kobani who are desperate for help.

As Turkish troops and tanks stand guard at the border, many Kurds are desperate and angry, assaulted by Turkish teargas, water cannon, and police violence.

“Isis are inhuman, they are the terrorists. The YPG is fighting not only for the Kurds and their land, but for all of humanity,” said Nesrattin from the border town of Siirt. “We’re protecting Turkey, too. Why can’t they see that? We are Turkey’s friends.”

He is surrounded by a throng of other Kurds from Siirt who have come to the border “to make sure that Turkey does not support Isis”.

But they have been. They have been allowing foreign jihadists to freely cross the border into Syria, while forcefully banning Kurdish fighters to help in Kobani.

“Why do they use so much force against us?” asked Hatice, 38. “Many of our friends were hurt in clashes with the police on this side of the border. They use teargas and water cannon, some of our cars were damaged. We’re not doing anything bad, we just want to stand here to support the YPG fighters in Kobani.”

But apparently, Erdoğan hates the Kurds more than he fears ISIS.

“Erdoğan hates the Syrian Kurds. He thinks they’re worse than Isis. Turkey has many problems with this and has always been ambiguous,” said a European diplomat involved in the effort to build an anti-Isis coalition.

That view appeared to be vindicated this week when Erdoğan equated the Kurds of Kobani and their defenders with the jihadi assailants. “It is wrong to view them differently, we need to deal with them jointly,” he told journalists in Istanbul.

That's because he considers the banned the Kurdish PKK army as terrorists.

Kobani Kurdish fighters are running out of ammunition, though, and  U.S. airstrikes are doing little to help. If and when Kobani falls, Turkey is just a stone's throw away.

Kobani from Turkey border - Photo credit Lefteris Pitarakis

According to Pentagon's Rear Adm. John Kirby, those airstrikes "are not going to save" Kobani.

"I think we all should be steeling ourselves for that eventuality," he told reporters in a daily briefing Wednesday.

"We are doing everything we can to halt" ISIS' progress against the town, but airstrikes alone cannot stop the Islamist militants, Kirby added.

"We've been very honest about the limits of air power here. The ground forces that matter the most are indigenous ground forces, and we don't have a willing, capable, effective partner on the ground inside Syria right now -- it's just a fact," he said.

Erdoğan would do well to help Kobani, considering ISIS has now posted another propaganda video, claiming Turkey is next- that ISIS will conquer Turkey and rid the country of Erdoğan.

The YouTube video here.

The Battle Against ISIS- Leon Panetta Predicts A 30 Year War

Like a metastasizing, aggressive cancer, the Islamic State (ISIS) is spreading. They've managed to take control of the eastern side of the Syrian border town of Kobani (aka Kobane), raising their black flag high atop a building and a hill for everyone to see. The same town where a young Kurdish fighter, Arin Mirkan, allegedly a commander in the Kurdish People's Protection Unit (YPG), blew herself up while fighting ISIS jihadists in the outskirts of Kobani. Trying to keep them from overtaking the mainly Kurdish town.

ISIS is gaining ground both in that region and globally, where more and more recruits are attempting to make their way to Syria and Iraq. Some are caught, we can only assume a bunch have already made their way there, or will, without being apprehended. Take Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 19, a Chicago kid who was planning on making the trek to Syria to join ISIS until he was caught at O'Hare International Airport this past Saturday. Maximum jail sentence would be 15 years. And remember this stupid Muslim convert, Military Explorer trained Shannon Maureen Conley, who was also trying to make the trek to Syria to join ISIS and her future Tunisian husband she met online, back in July of this year? Here is her uber-bizarre story.   Egypt just busted an ISIS recruiting cell over there. Indonesia is battling a problem with ISIS recruitment. And then you have France, Australia, England, in fact many European countries are represented in ISIS. They are everywhere, and it's going to be a huge problem.

And the West's air strikes against militants in Syria and Iraq don't seem to be of much help. In fact, Barack Obama's ex-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta predicts a 30 year war with ISIS, blaming Obama for not arming the moderates during Syria's version of the Arab Spring, way back when foreign fighters were not involved, and it was just a bunch of people yearning for democracy. And he's absolutely right,  I have said as much in the past.

Panetta told USA Today:

“I think we’re looking at kind of a 30-year war” that could extend to threats in Libya, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, Panetta told the newspaper.

Panetta, a respected policymaker who served under Obama, blamed the challenges on decisions the president made over the past three years.

Among those decisions, he cited Obama’s failure to push the Iraqi government hard enough to allow a residual U.S. force to stay in the country after troops withdrew in 2011, saying that created a security “vacuum.”

The former defense secretary also pointed to Obama’s rejection of advice in 2012 from Panetta and then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton to begin arming Syrian rebels fighting against President Bashar al-Assad.

“I do think we would be in a better position to kind of know whether or not there is some moderate element in the rebel forces that are confronting Assad,” Panetta said.

We're in this for the long haul, at least one can hope, since the alternative is far too hideous to contemplate.

American Joins Kurds In Fight Against ISIS

There have been a slew of foreign fighters joining the ranks of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, quite a few from the United States, so here's a twist- three Americans, including Jordan Matson, have allegedly joined the Kurds in their battle against ISIS.

A U.S. citizen has joined Kurdish forces fighting against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants in northern Syria, a spokesman for the main Kurdish armed group in the country said on Thursday.

The Kurdish official said that Jordan Matson had joined the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), who are mainly battling advances by ISIS close to Syria’s borders with Turkey and Iraq.

“Yes it is true,” YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said in an online message. “He is fighting in the Jazaa area.”

Jazaa is a town in Syria’s northeastern Hasaka province, close to the Iraqi border and has been the site of heavy fighting between the two groups.

According to a report on Al Arabiya and Matson's Facebook Page, he's from Wisconsin, and 28-years old.

A gaming friend of Matson's, Miguel Caron, had this to say:

“He told us in the community that he was getting hired by a private army and he let us know two to three months in advance. He sent me a personal Facebook message on the 16th of September saying ‘hey boss, I’m heading to Syria.’ He told me he dropped his girlfriend and stopped looking for a job."

Matson told Caron that he had been in the military.  According to a Twitter post (that was also posted on Matson's Facebook page, although only viewable by friends) he was slightly wounded while fighting. But from the groups and likes on his page he appears to be a Christian interested in the plight of the Christians in Syria, and the YPG.

And found this on Twitter:

If all of this is true, and he and the other two are really fighting there. God speed.

Reports of Massacre Of Kurds By Rebel Forces In North Syria

Reports of a massacre of about 450 Kurds in northern Syria by al-Qaeda linked rebels.  The Kurds have apparently tried to disassociate themselves from both sides, and it still gets them killed.