The Arab Democrat The Latest From The Arab World
Related Articles
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) has sent several hundreds of fighter to Kobane, in addition to the 400 fighters already in the town, a commander of a unit said on Thursday.
FSA fighters, who oppose the Syrian regime, have joined the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to defend Kurdish Syrian border town Kobane, and will shortly be joined by the Kurdish peshmerga from northern Iraq. Turkey, which has for long wanted to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad, is a supporter of the FSA.
Nizar al-Khatib, a commander of an FSA unit on its way to Kobane, in a rare public appearance in Istanbul, said that a command post had been set up so that allied forces could co-ordinate activities and battle the Islamic State (IS).
Dressed in civilian clothes, Khatib said that the FSA has been present near Kobane even before the fighting started.
“There were 200 of us from the region even before the first fighting started against Islamic State (jihadists) and now there are almost 400 of us and we are expecting other reinforcements”, he said at the Istanbul Hotel.
Khatib, the leader of an FSA unit that calls itself the “dawn of freedom”, added that his unit was in constant touch with Kurdish factions in Syria.
“The command of Kobane is not in the hands of a single individual. There is a command post where all the forces present are represented and take decisions together”, he said.
However, he added that FSA forces had not received the training they were promised by Turkey.
“There are discussions in progress with Turkey about the possibility of training the FSA forces. But nothing has really been decided. It has yet to get started”, he said. Earlier this week, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had told the BBC that Turkey prefers that the FSA and not the YPG control Kobane if IS falls.
