.jpg)
By Tilman Zülch:
Urgent appeal to
US Secretary of State, John Kerry
Dear Secretary Kerry,
In the last few days, IS-Islamists have been attacking the small Kurdish enclave Kobani in northern Syria with heavy artillery and modern tanks, while fighter planes of the US and its allies werecircling the region. According to reports, the Islamists have already occupied 325 Kurdish villages. They have captured at least 600 Kurdish civilians – and hundreds of Kurdish civilians have apparently been executed.
Almost 500,000 Kurds from Syria are on the run. The entire region was depopulated. Many of those who fell into the hands of the Islamists were decapitated. The mass murder and the mass expulsions are taking place under the eyes of the so-called “anti-terrorist alliance”.
It is hard to believe that the United States military aircraft are not able to destroy the Islamists’ heavy artillery and tank guns – and even the NATO-member Turkey simply watches while the barbarians of the 21st century are killing innocent people; women, children and elderly alike.
In the name of humanity, we would like to ask you to do everything possible to stop the brutal attacks of the Islamists in the Kobani region. The United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and especially the government in Ankara are partly responsible for letting the IS-terrorists gain power. The IS was able to accumulate the necessary financial resources undisturbed – and managed to recruit more and more jihadists from all over the world.
You are obliged to help the peaceful civilian population of Kobani. Your help is needed to save Kobani from the IS-militia. If the Islamists manage to take Kobani, there will be another mass murder!
Yours sincerely,
Tilman Zülch, Secretary General of the STP (Society for Threatened Peoples)
As an Australian resident with no Kurdish links, I have nevertheless been appalled and disgusted by the US failure to launch effective air strikes to protect Kobani. Why were small oil refineries an urgent affair, yet the furious IS advances not so? It has been much too little, much too late since, and the whole thing smells to high heaven.
Have secret promises been made to Turkey to abandon the Kurds at Kobani, under the fig leaf of a few token and ineffective attacks to disguise the truth? For shame President Obama, this is unworthy of you. At this last desperate moment, please reclaim your honour and bomb the hell out of these barbarian IS brutes, as they make their final advance to commit a foul massacre on the very border of a NATO member.
@Bruce Preston, as an American resident with no Kurdish links, I agree with every single word you said. I’ve been watching news out of the area for weeks, and I don’t know what the hell we’re waiting for. To Obama this may just be about launching a few cosmetic air strikes to save face in an election year (that he waited until they were waving a severed head in front of a camera and calling him out by name to take action in Syria is very telling), but the reality is that we’re watching a genocide in the making and not doing a damned thing about it. We should be scrambling everything we have at Incirlik down there, with or without Turkey’s approval. They’d have to shoot our planes down to stop it, and explain on the international stage why they committed an act of war against the United States in the interest of allowing a genocide to occur on their doorstep unimpeded.