En Route To A Terrible Slaughter

"The world, all of us, will regret deeply if ISIS is able to take over a city which has defended itself with courage but is close to not being able to do so."
Staffan de Mistura, United Nations envoy to Syria

"I am telling the West -- dropping bombs from the air will not provide a solution. [The time had come to] cooperate for a ground invasion."
"Kobani is about to fall."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

"Now that ISIL are in the eastern side of the town, a street war has started. It's like gang warfare."
"The YPG fighters know every street. Most of them are sons of Kobani and they are famous for their street fighting. ISIL are better armed but when it comes to street fighting, maybe the situation could be different. The fighting has been intense and 350 jihadist fighters have been killed on the eastern side of Kobani."
"For the Kurds, the American air strikes were the only hope, but they seem to have been more effective in Iraq. There's a valley to the southwest of Kobani that had 2,000 ISIL vehicles in it for 11 days, yet the Americans have never targeted them. It's as if they only want to scare them or do a little damage. I was in the southwest of Kobani and I saw an American air strike hitting a water pump belonging to a local farmer."
Ahmed Shekho, 24, head, Syrian Kurdish students' union, Mursitpinar, Turkey

"Let America, Britain and all the world help us. When Kobani falls, it will be like World War III. I haven't spoken to my sons [Kurdish militia] for three days. I don't know what will become of them. No one likes us or cares about us. They just want us to die."
Rezdar Azad, Syrian Kurdish refugee, Turkey refugee camp

Turkey's despicable indifference to the fate of Syrian Kurds simply reflects the government's contempt and hatred of all Kurds, particularly their own millions of Turkish Kurds whose agitation over the past half-century for a land of their own has been irksome beyond debate to Turkey. Although the Justice and Development Party of President Erdogan has managed a semi-peace treaty with the PKK, they fear it will be invigorated by the clashes across the border and return to civil conflict.

Turkey has declared its readiness to become involved with the U.S.-led coalition fighting an aerial war against ISIS, but it has done nothing of any substance other than agree to gather in refugees from Syria. A kilometer away the city of Kobani is on the verge of collapse into the grisly hands of the Islamic State, but Turkey will not allow food, emergency supplies, weapons or fighters to cross the border to aid the Kurdish militias in their battle to save the city.

"A terrible slaughter is coming. If they take the city, we should expect to have five thousand dead within twenty four or thirty-six hours", stated Rooz Aahjat, a Kurdish intelligence official. Turkish Kurds have demonstrated in support of their Syrian brethren, and the Government of Turkey has held them back from the border, stopped their demonstrations with all the means at their disposal, including live bullets, killing 22 Turkish Kurds in the process.

Turkish Gendarmerie stand amid tear gas during a protest against Islamic State (IS) near Sanliurfa, Turkey, 04 October 2014.

Kurds have the impression that Turkey is complicit with ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State, and that appears to be the case. At the very least they're compliant enough not to intervene, even while declaring their manufactured distress over the situation, while appearing to find satisfaction in witnessing the butchery imposed upon Syrian Kurds, refusing to intervene even while their military and tanks are standing at the border where a mere kilometre away evidence of close-range street-to-street combat with machine gun fire is taking place.

Turkish soldiers stand guard on tanks near the Turkey-Syria border after mortar shells hit Turkish territory in Suruc district, near Sanliurfa, Turkey, 06 October 2014.