Turkey Planning Next Move After ISIS Commits Massacre in Kobani

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Patrick Cockburn and Baris Kaargaarc discuss recent news that Turkey is considering military intervention in northern Syria

- July 1, 2015

snip* Transcript


Turkey Planning Next Move After ISIS Commits Massacre in KobaniJESSICA DESVARIEUX, PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.

Devastating news coming out of Syria. Thousands of more refugees are fleeing the country after last week's massacre in the Syrian Turkish border town of Kobani. Reports found that ISIS killed at least 200 civilians, including women, children, and the elderly. These actions are seen as retaliation by ISIS after Kurdish forces drove the militants out of the highly symbolic border town which Kurds had taken over in January with the help of U.S. air strikes. Turkey has come out vowing to protect its border, and the possibility of an invasion by Turkey into Syria is growing more and more likely.

Now joining us to understand the micro and macro issues around this massacre are our two guests. Joining us from England is Patrick Cockburn. Patrick is a correspondent for the Independent of London. Also joining us from Turkey is Baris Karaagac. Baris is a lecturer in international development studies at Trent University in Ontario.

Thank you both for joining us.

BARIS KARAAGAC, LECTURER OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES, TRENT UNIV.: Hi.

PATRICK COCKBURN, JOURNALIST, THE INDEPENDENT: Thank you.

DESVARIEUX: Okay, so Patrick, I'm going to start off with you. You were recently in northeast Syria. What do we know about what happened on the day of that massacre, and can you just describe for us some of the fighting.

COCKBURN: Yeah. ISIS infiltrated Kobani early in the morning last Thursday. They dressed up in uniforms of Kurdish forces and possibly Syrian rebel forces who were allied to the Kurds.

They got into Kobani where, the city which they tried to capture over four and a half months, ending at the beginning of this year, [but have been] stopped. They started immediately massacring people. This was a pre-planned massacre. Shooting people, including women and children, at point-blank range in the streets. Then they started bursting into houses, killing everybody there. They put up sniper positions on the top of buildings, and they took many Kurdish civilians hostage.

Then there was a counterattack by the Syrian Kurdish forces. They'd been caught by surprise, they weren't expecting this. And they did eventually kill most of the ISIS fighters there. But it's been a very nasty shock for the Kurds.

DESVARIEUX: All right. And this has all led to Turkey being quite stern about its desire to protect its border. Turkey is saying that it won't fight unilaterally, but pro-government media outlets claim that the government was planning a cross-border operation in Syria involving 18,000 ground troops and a 68 mile long buffer zone within Syria.

That's a pretty big deal, Baris, since Turkey is NATO's second-biggest fighting force after the U.S. military. So what do you make of all of this? If Turkey were to get involved, and we can talk about why they would get involved, who would Turkey actually be fighting?

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