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 townof 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.
“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 small village near Kobani.
He and other euphoric Kurds waited for hours along streets in Suruc to catch a glimpse of thepeshmerga troops they consider to be heroes. Most were seeing them for the first time.
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 400 kilometers (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, activists and Kurdish officials said.
The group of about 50 armed men is from the Free Syrian Army and is separate fromIraqi peshmerga fighters. The FSA is an umbrella group of mainstream rebels fighting to toppleSyrian President Bashar Assad. The political leadership of the Western-backed FSA is based in Turkey, where fighters often seek respite from battle.
Kurdish fighters in Syria, known as the People’s Protection Units or YPG, have been struggling to defend Kobani against the Islamic State group since mid-September, despite dozens of coalition airstrikes against the extremists.
It is not clear what impact this small but battle-hardened combined force of FSA and peshmergafighters — and their combined weaponry — will have in the battle for Kobani. Kurdish fighters are already sharing information with the coalition to coordinate strikes against IS militants there, but the new force may help improve efforts and offer additional battlefield support.
Nawaf Khalil, Europe-based spokesman for Syria’s leading Kurdish Democratic Union Party, said the peshmerga force was “symbolic in number” but their weapons will play a positive role in Kobani.
Syrian Kurds have begged the international community for heavy weapons — like the ones delivered by the U.S. and its allies to Iraq’s Kurds — to bolster the outgunned defenders of Kobani.
Earlier this month, the U.S. dropped weapons, ammunition and other supplies for the first time following concern that Kobani was about to fall. That, along with daily U.S. airstrikes and a fierce determination by the Kurdish fighters, has stalled the IS advance.
“Kurds will remember this moment in history. They will speak of ‘before and after Kobani’ from now on,” Khalil said of the peshmerga force’s participation.
Emotions were high among residents of Suruc, a predominantly Kurdish border town, as people waited for the peshmerga in a square and along a main street, where police patrolled with loudspeakers.
“We are expecting them to go there and throw out IS from Kobani so we can go back to our homes,” said Ahmed Boza, 68, from Kobani.
Another Kobani resident, 57-year-old Mohammed Osman, said: “We are waiting for thepeshmerga because we (Kurds) are all brothers. We are all part of one whole. If one side hurts, we are all in pain.”
The Islamic State group’s offensive on Kobani and nearby Syrian villages has killed more than 800 people, activists say. The Sunni extremists captured dozens of Kurdish villages and control parts of Kobani. More than 200,000 people have fled into Turkey.
The coalition has carried out dozens of airstrikes against the militants in and around Kobani, helping stall their advance. The U.S. Central Command said eight airstrikes struck near Kobani on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The fighting in Kobani has deadlocked recently, with neither side getting the upper hand.
Under pressure to take greater action against the IS militants — from the West as well as from Kurds in Turkey and Syria — the Turkish government agreed to let the fighters cross through its territory. But it only is allowing the peshmerga forces from Iraq, with whom it has a good relationship, and not those from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
Ankara views the Syrian Kurds defending Kobani as loyal to what it regards as an extension of the PKK. That group has waged a 30-year insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by the U.S. and NATO.
Kurdish fighters in Syria have repeatedly said they did not need more fighters, only weapons. Kurds in Syria distrust Turkey’s intentions, accusing it of blocking assistance to the Kobani defenders for weeks before giving in to pressure and shifting its stance. Many suspect Ankara is trying to dilute YPG influence in Kobani by sending in the peshmerga and the Turkey-backed FSA.
The battle for Kobani is a small part in a larger war in Syria that has claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people since 2011, according to activists. The conflict began with largely peaceful protests calling for reform. It eventually spiraled into a civil war as people took up arms following a brutal crackdown by Assad on the protest movement.
Elsewhere in Syria, at least 10 civilians were killed Wednesday when army helicopters dropped two barrel bombs that landed at a makeshift refugee camp in the northern province of Idlib, opposition activists said.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement that the U.S. was “horrified” by the report.
“While we cannot confirm details, we’ve consistently condemned the Assad regime’s callous disregard for human life, particularly its violence directed against civilians. The attack on the Abedin camp was nothing short of barbaric,” the statement said.
Video posted online by activists showed bodies scattered among torn tents in a wooded area and civil defense workers gathering remains of the dead.
A car bomb exploded in a government-held district of the city of Homs, killing at least one person and wounding 25 others, a local official said.
From The Associated Press. AP writers Albert Aji and Diaa Hadid contributed from Damascus, Syria.
