Last week a U.S. journalist, Serena Shim, was murdered in Turkey for exposing the truth of Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan allowing and facilitating ISIS militants going to and from Turkey into strategic positions around Kobane (Kobani).
Now an independent journalist team have used video to show Turkish police and military meeting with ISIS militants on the Turkish border.

Obviously the brutal reality of this expose’ is dangerous to Erdogan’s deceptive claims to the contrary. (more…)

Given all previous outlines this would not be a surprise….
WASHINGTON – The death of an American journalist who worked in the Middle East has come under suspicion because she had claimed days before her death that the Turkish intelligence services had threatened her over her coverage of the siege of the Syrian city of Kobani.

[…]  “We were some of the first people on the ground – if not the first people – to get that story of … militants going in through the Turkish border. … I’ve got images of them in World Food Organization trucks. It was very apparent that they were militants by their beards, by the clothes they wore, and they were going in there with NGO trucks.”

Serena Shim, an American citizen of Lebanese origin, was a journalist for Iran’s state-owned Press TV. She was killed in a car crash in the city of Suruc after she reportedly collided with a “heavy vehicle.”
She was in a rental car returning from her assignment when the crash occurred. Neither the “heavy vehicle” nor its driver has been located, although her driver reportedly was arrested. (more…)

Those who have followed the month long fight for Kobane know what’s really behind the reversal in Turkey’s position. Quite simply the Kurds in Kobane have outfought ISIS, outmatched the jihadists, and outlasted the insufferable pressure from both ISIS and the Islamic State’s ideological ally, Recep Erdogan.
Turkey, a NATO member, could no longer stand in the sunlight of the world’s scrutiny, and the pressure upon Sunni President Erdogan was building. Having just suffered an embarrassing defeat in a bid to gain a U.N. Security Council seat Erdogan reverses position and allows Turkish Kurds to go and defend their sisters and brothers in arms.

MURSITPINAR, Turkey — Turkey said Monday that it would allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters to cross its border into the besieged Syrian town of Kobane, where Syrian Kurds are battling Islamic State militants.
The opening of a land corridor would be another potential boost for the Kobane defenders following U.S. airdrops of weapons, ammunition and medical supplies to them late Sunday.
But the deal, the subject of intensive U.S. diplomatic talks over the past week, also depends on whether the separate Kurdish groups can resolve their deep differences in the interest of confronting a common enemy. (more…)

This is considered a staggering, albeit splendid, defeat considering Turkey was anticipated to be a shoo-in for a non-permanent U.N. Security Council seat.

Previously Turkey had claimed letters of support from 160 countries. However, the actual voting by secret ballot showed they only had 60 countries who supported their bid. The needed threshold is 128 supportive votes. Spain won the seat with 132 votes of support. New Zealand is the other contested victor who won in a previous ballot.
As Newsweek reported: “[Last] Wednesday night, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, hosted a posh party for diplomats at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, where many of the guests predicted an easy victory for Turkey“.
Apparently the ‘pinky swear’ diplomats partook of the ritzy digs; but when push came to shove they knew their ballots would be secret so they ditched the Turks who have become more and more unreliable as Sunni Islamist President Erdogan pushes Turkey further and further into radical Islam. (more…)

Well lookie here:  US AIR DROPS
https://twitter.com/PentagonPresSec/status/524018927324913665
After coming to the reality the Kurds were going to hold the city at all costs the Pentagon appears to be trying to save face. After reading many of the reports from the region it appears the political strategy of the White House is also coming clear.

In order to protect themselves from the natural questions which would flow from President Obama and President Erdogan’s prior position of refusing aide for the Kurds in Kobane – the White House needs a political explanation. My hunch is you’ll hear the White House claim they were intentionally luring ISIS into amassing around Kobane so they could target the enemy in one centrally located area. In addition, the ploy -per se- will be sold as pinning ISIS to a singular geography and then targeting their resupply efforts.
Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket.
It’s an explanation just like the White House intentionally drawing the Syrian WMD “red line” because Secretary Kerry knew Russia would step in to take charge of removing the Assad WMD stockpiles. Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket.
(more…)

The overall progress in the Kobane (Kobani) campaign has been moving towards favoring the Kurds in the last 4 days. The reporters and observers all seem to hold the same opinion – the fierce Kurdish women fighters -within the Kobane resistance- are the reason for the success.

Click images to enlarge

Additional coalition airstrikes have also been helpful in stopping ISIS forces from re-supply. A key tactical strategy which benefits the Kurdish forces and equalizes the fight.
SYRIA BBC – The Islamic State (IS) militant group has been driven out of most of the northern Syrian town of Kobane, a Kurdish commander has told the BBC.
Baharin Kandal said IS fighters had retreated from all areas, except for two pockets of resistance in the east.
US-led air strikes have helped push back the militants, with another 14 conducted over the past 24 hours. (more…)

The Kurds battling for Kobane (Kobani) continue to request resupply and additional weapons from the U.S. and Turkey. However, neither President Obama nor President Erdogan have done anything to provide reinforcements for the Kurdish fighters.
Despite their isolation, and with assistance from airstrikes in the surrounding terrain, Kurdish fighters have been able to recapture strategic locations from ISIS control.

SYRIA – Kurdish fighters have launched an unlikely comeback against Islamic State terrorists besieging the Syrian town of Kobane, amid claims the resistance forces have now reclaimed swathes of the city.
Images this morning showed Kurdish YPG soldiers triumphantly raising their flag above Tel Shair hill in the west of the city, where ISIS’ own black jihadist flag had recently been flying.
Assisted by sustained U.S. and Arab airstrikes, the massively outgunned Kurdish troops have managed to do what looking impossible only a week ago – force ISIS to abandon strategic locations in the west of Kobane and pin them back elsewhere in the city.
(more…)

The Daily Beast has another good recap of a speech recently delivered by the evolving wannabe head of ISIS, Recep Erdogan.   Erdogan views himself as natural heir to the recreation of the Ottoman empire – ISIS is a means to accomplish that goal…. 
TURKEY – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took on the iconic Lawrence of Arabia Monday in a furious anti-Western diatribe. The Turkish president compared the outside meddling in the region now to the role the renowned British army officer played during the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during World War I. And Western diplomats here say the tirade bears a rather striking resemblance to some of the propaganda that has come out of the so-called Islamic State, widely known by the acronym ISIS or ISIL.

[…]  Erdoğan has been accused of at best turning a blind eye to the rise of ISIS and at worst actively encouraging it…

Last week, stung by Western criticism of Turkey’s conspicuous absence from the U.S.-led air combat against the terror organization, and the refusal of the Turkish government to rescue the besieged town of Kobani, just across the Syrian border, Erdoğan insisted he had no sympathy for the jihadists.
But on one very important point of history and geography it now appears there’s a serious convergence of views between ISIS and Erdoğan. In his speech Monday at a university in Istanbul, the Turkish president blasted the Sykes-Picot Agreement, a secret understanding (signed behind Lawrence’s back) that divided up the Middle East after World War I between British and French spheres of influence. (more…)

The Kurdish forces fighting ISIS in Kobane (Kobani) would beg to differ.
Despite the obvious, and well documented, non-support for the Kurds fighting in Kobane, Susan Rice goes on Meet the Press and proclaims the administration strategy is to support them.

“This is very early days of the strategy. The strategy is very clear. We’ll do what we can from the air. We will support the Iraqi security forces, the Kurds, and ultimately over time, the moderate opposition in Syria to be able to control territory and take the fight to ISIL.”

Water is no longer wet.

(Full Story Via WFB) On Sunday, National Security Advisor Susan Rice said the United States would not reevaluate the strategy to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS or ISIL), despite its recent territorial advances, and said that the Obama administration is still not considering boots on the ground. (more…)

I hold no opinion of Carly Fiorina in a general sense, but the way she responded to Chris Wallace’s retort about Syria and Obama was exactly excellent. Right on target – as she drew out the insufferable pretzel logic. Well done.