Kobane/Kobani in Syria next to the Turkish border and has for a couple of months now been under assault by SIS.
There has been immense international pressure on Turkey to intervene and when it didn't, mass accusations that it was aiding ISIS.
It has often been stated that Turkey is often a route used by westerners to get into Syria/Iraq and potentially join ISIS. Further "damning" evidence against Turkey is that potentially around 400 Turks have joined ISIS.
What is often ignored when quoting this number is that there are more suspected britons (500) of having joined ISIS that Turks (400) even though Turkey is a Muslim country and is right next to the theatre of operations.
Turkey also states that it has turned back many westerners from entering Syria when it has been informed of their intentions. Otherwise it cannot simply stop all tourists from entering its country.
Back to the topic of Kobane, while Turkey did not "intervene" in Syria by sending in its troops, they were unwanted both by the defacto government of Kobane, the PYD and also the deguerre ruler of Syria, Bashar al Asad.
While there has been no overt movement by Turkey to send military aid, the president of Kurdish Iraq, Barzani has confirmed that weaponry has been allowed through.
The west has been putting pressure on Turkey to intervene in SYria, but all without having to get its abcks dirty. If turkey does send in its troops, ISIS is not the only issue.
The defacto rulers of Kobane, the PYD have links to the terrorist organisation the PKK which has waged a guerrilla war (that is hopefully coming to an end) that has resulted in 30,000 deaths in the past 3 or so decades.
The PYD requested assistance not of Turkey but the PKK. It is understandable for Turkey to not agree to this.
Turkey instead arranged alternative support for Kobane via the Free Syrian Army and the Kurdish Peshmerga.
When offered help from other forces, such as the FSA, they begrudgingly let a handful in.
Fellow Kurds from Iraq offered to send in 2,000 Kurdish peshmerga fighters (a group, while kurdish, at peace with Turkey and not involved in any guerilla warfare within Turkey). The PYD in Kobane balked at this and in the end through negotiated for only 130 being sent. (I am not sure if they are all in Syria yet).
Meanwhile Turkey was made a scapegoat for not helping in "Kobane".
Worse all this is going on while people ignore that Assad is killing and has killed multiple times the number of people as ISIS - ISIS pales in comparison to the brutality of Assad's forces and it is only Turkey left huffing an puffing over the dangers of leaving Assad in place while the rest of the world ignores this. ISIS only came into the fight due to the previous chaos in both Syria and Iraq.
But it is easier to scare people with the bogeyman of ISIS than deal with the real issues.
There are many conspiracy theories about ISIS, who created them, who controls them. While most are likely false and hard to believe, it is interesting to note that Assad did criticise Turkey for letting Peshmerga fighters in to help the residents of Kobane.
It is also a strange coincidence that the US in its bombing campaign has created an imaginary terrorist group called "the Khorasan" and bombed anti ISIS forces on the guise of bombging the Khorasan - an imaginary group that may have been in the process of forming a thought about contemplating to plan an attack against western targets.
In a few places the US has bombed opponents of ISIS and in other places where local ISIS remnants were cooperating in the fight against Assad, by weakening the opposition has given more power to Assad's forces by acting as its airforce.
Something to note is that overall it seems ISIS controls more ground now than before the US bombing campaign started, but there are reports coming in that there may have been major bombing around Mosul tonight and that also separately, Baghdadi may have been injured, take both with a pinch of salt.
