''Over the summer Isis – the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria – defeated the Iraqi army, the Syrian army, the
Syrian rebels and the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga; it established a state
stretching from Baghdad to Aleppo and from Syria’s northern border to
the deserts of Iraq in the south. Ethnic and religious groups of which
the world had barely heard – including the Yazidis of Sinjar and the
Chaldean Christians of Mosul – became victims of Isis cruelty and
sectarian bigotry. In September, Isis turned its attention to the two
and a half million Syrian Kurds who had gained de facto autonomy in
three cantons just south of the Turkish border. One of these cantons,
centred on the town of Kobani, became the target of a determined
assault. By 6 October, Isis fighters had fought their way into the
centre of the town. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan predicted that its fall was
imminent; John Kerry spoke of the ‘tragedy’ of Kobani, but claimed –
implausibly – that its capture wouldn’t be of great significance. A
well-known Kurdish fighter, Arin Mirkan, blew herself up as the Isis
fighters advanced: it looked like a sign of despair and impending
defeat.''
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