SURUC, Turkey — Iraqi peshmerga troops were cheered Wednesday by fellow Kurds in southeastern Turkey as the fighters slowly made their way toward the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani to try to break a siege there by Islamic State militants.
But the ability of the small force to turn the tide of battle will depend on the effectiveness of their weapons and on continued U.S.-led airstrikes against the extremists.
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U.S. analysts looking at possible alliance of al-Qaida, Islamic State
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence analysts are closely watching al-Qaida’s overtures to the renegade Islamic State to reunite and fight the West, and while a full reconciliation is not on the horizon, there is evidence the two groups have curtailed their feud and are cooperating on the Syrian battlefield.
The al-Qaida global terror network recently has extended olive branches to the rival Islamic State through messages released by its affiliates around the world. The most recent was on Oct. 17 from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based offshoot that denounced the airstrikes and called on rival militant groups to stop their infighting and together train their sights on Western targets. Al-Qaida also has sent emissaries to Syria on unsuccessful missions to get the rival groups working together.
Al-Qaida is saying, “Let’s just have a truce in Syria,” said Tom Joscelyn, who tracks terror groups for the Long War Journal. “That is what’s underway now. … What we have seen is that local commanders are entering into local truces. There are definitely areas where the two groups are not fighting.”
– The Associated Press
“We are waiting for the peshmerga. We want to see what weapons they have,” said 30-year-old Nidal Attur, who arrived in Suruc two weeks ago from a village near Kobani.
He and other euphoric Kurds waited for hours along streets in Suruc to catch a glimpse of the peshmerga troops they consider to be heroes.
After a rousing send-off from thousands of cheering supporters a day earlier in the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Irbil, the peshmerga forces landed early Wednesday at the Sanliurfa airport in southeastern Turkey.
They left the airport in buses escorted by Turkish security forces and were expected to travel to Kobani later Wednesday. Others traveled to Turkey in trucks and vehicles loaded with cannons and heavy machine guns. They crossed into Turkey through the Habur border gate before daybreak Wednesday and were driving about about 250 miles to Suruc.
The peshmerga troops – about 150 in all – were expected to join up along the road to the Mursitpinar border crossing, where they were to enter Kobani.
Separately, a small group of Syrian rebels entered Kobani from Turkey on Wednesday in a push to help Kurdish fighters there against the militants.
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