ISIL using captured Iraqi weapons against Syria's Kurds
The leader of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party says Kurdish fighters in northern Syria are facing ISIL forces equipped with artillery and armor
ERBIL, Iraq
ISIL militants have been using heavy weapons captured from the fleeing Iraqi army against Kurdish rebel fighters in Syria, it has been claimed.
The Kurdish Democratic Union Party, known as the PYD, said its armed wing has been faced ISIL fighters freshly supplied with Iraqi armored vehicles and artillery.
Chairman Salih Muslim told the Anadolu Agency that the PYD’s Popular Protection Units have faced reinforced ISIL forces around Kobani, known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, in northern Syria.
“We are having difficulty fighting ISIL since they fight with heavy artillery seized from the Iraqi army,” he said. “They include armored vehicles, tanks, assorted weaponry. Our hands are tied since armored vehicles are bullet-proof. We are looking for anti-tank explosives and other weapons to fight them.”
Calling for international assistance, Muslim said: “We need to coordinate the fight against them. We are ready to work with any country to form a new front against ISIL.”
He added: “ISIL is not only a threat to the Kurdish population in Syria, but to the whole Middle East region. We have always said ISIL is a terrorist organization, but nobody was listening. Now they are aware of the danger.”
The PYD is a Syrian affiliate of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and is described by the Carnegie Middle East Center as “one of the most important Kurdish opposition parties in Syria.”
The party has strained relations with other Kurdish groups, particularly the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq, led by Massoud Barzani.
Commenting on the situation around Kobani, Jabbar Yawar, leader of peshmerga forces in Iraq, said: “ISIL has launched attacks with heavy artillery, rockets, tanks and other weaponry in the Kobani area. It seems that the YPG [the Kurdish acronym for the Popular Protection Units] is losing to ISIL."
ISIL, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, has intensified its assault on Kurdish-held areas of Syria, seeking to expand the territory of their self-declared caliphate, or Islamic state.
