By Danny
Gold December 26, 2014
On
December 19, VICE News entered the besieged Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane with
the help of smugglers and the Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the People's
Protection Units (YPG). The city was preparing to enter its 100th day of
fighting a fierce siege by the Islamic State (IS). Fighters with IS had been
pushed back by a combination of US airstrikes and heavy artillery from a small
contingency of Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. Surrounded by IS on three
sides, and a Turkish military hostile to Kurdish forces on the fourth, Kobane
has become a symbol of resistance for those fighting IS. YPG fighters now
estimate they control approximately 75 percent of the city, and US military
sources say over 1,000 IS militants have been killed.
The
Islamic State (IS) has repeatedly deployed the use of vehicle-borne improvised
explosive devices, or VBIED's. Here, a hospital has been targeted. IS has
targeted hospitals in Kobane three times, and the locations of the city's
hospitals have since been switched. There are only eight doctors currently
operating in the city.
A once
busy market street lays in ruins. All commercial activity has come to a halt in
the city. There is no electricity or heat. The YPG provides remaining civilians
with bread and water.
Zozan, 21,
and Avashin, 23, pause for a respite from fighting. The YPG has female brigades
known as the YPJ, or Women's Protection Units, and gender equality is a
fundamental part of its ideology.
Two
unexploded mortars lay on a street. IS launches between 10 and 200 mortars a
day into the city, according to YPG sources. The streets are littered with both
unexploded ordnance and shrapnel.
Many civilians have evacuated Kobane,
but some are still holding out and refuse to leave for Turkey, where refugees
live in squalid camps and receive little help from the Turkish government,
notorious for its history of oppressing the Kurdish people.
Streets in Kobane are dotted with
sniper screens to protect passersby from feared Chechen snipers within IS
ranks.
Mahmoud, a Kurdish guide and
journalist, holds a walkie-talkie he found displaying a photograph of his
brother, who was killed in the fighting. Nearly all fighters VICE News spoke
with have a close friend or family member who has been killed in the conflict.
This YPG fighter said his brother was
martyred. He also apologized for the American journalists that IS has killed,
and assured journalists that they are safe in Kobane.
Entire residential streets sit
abandoned, and apartment complexes serve as bases. Sledgehammers have been
taken to walls so that fighters can move unseen throughout entire apartment
complexes. Possessions lay strewn around as homes were abandoned so quickly
that many residents left with only what they could carry.
A Kurdish journalist runs across an
open space to dodge sniper fire.
A Kurdish fighter passes through a
hole smashed into a floor.
Entire blocks have been leveled in the
fighting.
Three YPG fighters meet in the
streets. Entire areas of the city are abandoned, except for by YPG fighters
hiding out.
The charred body of an IS fighter lies
in the street. YPG fighters say that IS often burns or beheads its militant
after they are killed to avoid having them identified.
YPJ fighters on the eastern front.
YPJ fighters rest and fool around with
a toy snake 50 meters from an IS position.
Two YPJ fighters move through the
ruins of Kobane.
The charred body of an IS militant
killed in a US airstrikes. YPG fighters say the airstrikes have been very
helpful but that they need heavy weapons to fully eradicate IS in the city.
The names of three IS fighters written on a wall near one of their
former city bases that was eventually hit by a US airstrike
YPJ fighter moving through the city.
Commander Bilnk, from the Kurdish
enclave of Efrin, has been fighting in Kobane for three months. "If we
don't have heavy weapons, what can we do?" he said.
A group of YPG and YPJ fighters cross
a courtyard away from the frontline.
. A Kurdish commander pauses as he
returns from the frontline.
A group of YPG and YPJ fighters poses
for a photo before moving out on patrol.
US airstrikes have effectively
combatted heavy weaponry held by IS. The strikes, typically numbering between
three and five daily, tend to come at night.
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