The Syrian town of Kobane, which sits along that country’s border with Turkey, has become a key strategic area to help carry out Turkey’s deceptive plan. The Islamic State is making huge gains in Kobane and the surrounding northern border region against the Kurds. Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is calling for ground troops to be sent to the area.

The president of Turkey has urged for ground troops to be deployed in Kobane as the key Syrian border town teeters on the verge of falling under the control of the Islamic State and of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

The town has been under assault by Isil jihadists for more than three weeks and has become a focal point for the West’s air strikes against the terrorist organisation.
The fall of Kobane to Isil would mark a major victory for the jihadists, who are fighting for a long stretch of the border with Turkey for their self-proclaimed “Islamic caliphate”.

At least 412 people, more than half of them jihadists, have been killed in and around Kobane since mid-September, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that a ground operation is needed to defeat the militants, fuelling concerns that US-led air strikes are doing little to halt Isil’s advances.

“The terror will not be over… unless we cooperate for a ground operation,” president Erdogan said in a televised speech in the eastern city of Gaziantep, adding that air strikes were not enough on their own.

“Months have passed but no results have been achieved. Kobane is about to fall.”

Erdogan’s lack of specificity about which “ground troops” should be sent may hint at his wanting NATO countries to step up.

NATO should respond (but won’t) by expelling Turkey from NATO.