Kobani

Overview

Kobani, also called Ayn al-Arab, is a predominantly Kurdish city in northern Syria on the border with Turkey. It forms part of Syrian Kurdistan and became the center of a north-central Kurdish canton during the Syrian civil war. Its position on the border made the city important to the Kurds who lived in and around it, to Turkey, and to armed forces seeking control of northern Syria. The name Kobani entered international prominence during the battle fought there from September 2014 through January 2015.

The Islamic State assaulted Kobani with several thousand fighters, tanks and artillery. Its forces entered the city on October 7, 2014, and captured eastern and southern districts. Kurdish fighters of the People’s Defense Units, or YPG, resisted in prolonged street battles, supported by intensive airstrikes from a United States-led coalition. Kurdish forces expelled the Islamic State from the city in January 2015 after more than four months of fighting. Combat continued in the surrounding countryside. The victory was the organization’s worst defeat since the coalition had begun its campaign against it and prevented it from securing a long stretch of the Syrian–Turkish border.

Kobani’s defense also changed the wider war. American air support for the YPG established a strategic partnership with Syrian Kurdish forces. The YPG later became the military backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which fought the Islamic State across northeastern Syria. At the same time, Kobani remained exposed to Turkish military pressure. The withdrawal of United States troops from the city during a later Turkish offensive brought Syrian government forces back to the area and changed the balance among the forces guarding the border.

Geography

Kobani lies directly south of Turkey in northern Syria, within the Kurdish-inhabited area extending across parts of the country’s northern border. The city and its surrounding villages formed the central Kobani canton; Jazira lay to its east and Afrin to its west. Afrin, Kobani and Qamishli were three major Kurdish population centers from which the Democratic Union Party expanded during the Syrian civil war. Kurds made up about 55 percent of the population in both the eastern Jazira canton and the central Kobani canton.

Geography shaped the battle for Kobani. Turkey bordered the city to the north, while Islamic State forces pressed from the Syrian countryside on other sides. Before the main assault reached its streets, fighting had spread through nearby villages and toward the border crossings around Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ayn. Control of Kobani offered the Islamic State a route toward consolidating territory along the Syrian–Turkish frontier. For the YPG, holding the city meant preserving a major Kurdish center and preventing the canton from being cut off by the organization’s advance.

Connections between the cantons became a central question after Kobani’s defense. In June 2015, Kurdish forces captured Tell Abyad from the Islamic State, linking Kobani with Jazira. That gain raised the possibility of a further westward connection toward Afrin. Turkey opposed an advance by the PKK-linked Democratic Union Party west of Kobani. The city’s location therefore remained significant after the Islamic State’s expulsion: developments at nearby border crossings, roads and towns could affect whether Kurdish-held territory remained connected and whether Kobani could be reinforced.

Modern history

As Syrian government authority receded in parts of the north during the civil war, YPG militias took control of Kobani at the end of July 2012. The Democratic Union Party, linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, developed Kurdish-administered cantons around Kobani, Afrin and Jazira. Kobani formed the north-central canton. Kurdish forces also sought connections among their separate areas, including a route from Kobani and Afrin toward the Kurdish district of Sheikh Maqsoud in Aleppo. These ambitions brought them into conflict with the Islamic State’s effort to dominate northern Syria.

In summer 2014, the Islamic State fought Kurdish militias near Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ayn. Clashes spread toward Kobani, and the organization began its major assault in mid-September. It assembled several thousand fighters with tanks and artillery, took villages around the city and tightened its siege. The offensive sought both Kobani and the surrounding Syrian–Turkish border area. Fighting forced many residents from their homes, with large numbers crossing into Turkey. The movement of civilians, the threatened loss of a Kurdish population center and the proximity of the fighting to Turkey made the battle a regional crisis as well as an urban siege.

Islamic State forces entered Kobani on October 7, 2014, taking its eastern and southern outskirts. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned that day that the city was about to fall. By October 9, the organization held more than one-third of Kobani. United States Secretary of State John Kerry said on October 9 that preventing its fall was not a strategic goal of American airstrikes. On the ground, however, YPG fighters continued to resist. They fought from street to street against an opponent using artillery, armored vehicles, suicide bombers and explosives-laden vehicles.

Turkey initially declined to intervene and refused to allow Kurdish reinforcements to cross its territory into Kobani. Its stance reflected concern about the strengthening of the Democratic Union Party and the PKK, while Kurdish communities regarded the restrictions as a threat to the city’s survival. The refusal prompted riots and clashes between Kurds and police in Turkey. During the September siege, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan threatened to end peace talks unless Turkey allowed Kurdish fighters to cross into Syria to defend Kobani.

Turkey announced on October 21, 2014, that it would allow Kurdish fighters to cross into Syria to aid the city. At the end of October, Peshmerga reinforcements from Iraq traveled through Turkey to support the YPG in Kobani. The passage of Iraqi Kurdish forces brought another part of the Kurdish military landscape into a battle already involving Syrian Kurdish units and the PKK. It strengthened the defenders and showed how Kobani’s defense could produce practical cooperation among Kurdish forces despite differences among their organizations and political aims.

The siege remained undecided for much of late 2014. An October 24 battle tally counted 481 Islamic State fighters and 302 Kurdish fighters killed. On November 29, clashes involving the YPG killed ten Islamic State fighters. The organization also carried out a car bombing and a suicide bombing in Kobani that killed 30 people. On December 9, it published photographs presented as aerial images of the city, part of its effort to publicize the battle and portray its operations. The fighting continued without a decisive victory in early December, even as Kurdish forces regained ground. By December 7, they controlled more than 60 percent of Kobani.

Coalition aircraft repeatedly attacked Islamic State positions, vehicles, combat posts and staging areas. More than 600 of approximately 900 coalition airstrikes carried out in Syria during the campaign targeted the Kobani area. Strikes in December damaged the organization’s positions and helped Kurdish units advance. Air power was essential to the defense, but it did not by itself take or hold the streets. Kurdish fighters endured months of close combat, halted the assault and gradually retook occupied neighborhoods. Their knowledge of the city, persistence under siege and ground operations were central to the Islamic State’s defeat.

In January 2015, Kurdish forces expelled the Islamic State from Kobani. On January 30, the organization released a video in which two fighters acknowledged its withdrawal. The Islamic State portrayed the departure as a retreat caused by coalition airstrikes; its forces had been defeated by Kurdish ground fighters supported by those strikes. The result blocked its attempt to control a continuous stretch of the border. It also strengthened Syrian Kurdish aspirations for autonomy and gave the defense of Kobani lasting importance in Kurdish political life.

The city’s recapture did not end fighting nearby. Kurdish forces continued operations against Islamic State positions in the surrounding countryside through the following months, while coalition airstrikes struck remaining units and equipment. Turkey continued to permit Peshmerga forces to pass through its territory in support of the fighting around Kobani in March 2015. In June, the Kurdish capture of Tell Abyad linked the Kobani and Jazira cantons. Following the victory at Kobani, most subsequent Democratic Union Party territorial gains came at the Islamic State’s expense.

Security

The battle showed both the value and the difficulty of cooperation across the Syrian–Turkish border. The United States and its allies could strike Islamic State forces from the air, but Kurdish fighters had to defend neighborhoods and regain ground. Turkey controlled the most direct crossing route for reinforcements and initially kept it closed to Kurdish fighters. Its later permission for Peshmerga transit aided Kobani without resolving Ankara’s opposition to the PKK-linked Democratic Union Party. These different policies converged in one city, where decisions about border access had immediate military consequences.

The campaign also exposed civilians and fighters to the Islamic State’s tactics. Its car and suicide bombings caused deaths inside Kobani, while artillery and armored assaults intensified the danger in and around the city. Reports from October 21 and 22, 2014, described apparent chemical-weapon use against Kurdish forces. The reported symptoms pointed to chlorine or another chemical agent, although the precise substance was not conclusively identified. By the time Kurdish units recovered Kobani, much of its population had fled and fighting had damaged the city.

Kobani became a turning point in United States cooperation with Syrian Kurdish forces. American aircraft supported the YPG during the siege, and the partnership continued beyond the city’s liberation. When the Syrian Democratic Forces were formed in 2015, the YPG supplied their military backbone. The new force incorporated other communities and became the principal local partner in the United States-led campaign against the Islamic State in northeastern Syria. Kobani’s defense thus preceded a much broader military arrangement, even though the city itself remained vulnerable to shifts in American and Turkish policy.

Turkey continued to regard YPG-held areas along its border as a security concern. After Turkish forces captured Afrin, Erdoğan threatened further operations against Kurdish forces around Manbij, Kobani and Sinjar. The prospect of an advance toward Kobani raised concern that Turkish operations could divide territory held by the Syrian Democratic Forces. As a Turkish offensive developed, United States troops withdrew from Kobani. The Syrian Democratic Forces then invited Syrian government troops into northern border areas, and Syrian forces deployed in the city. Its security arrangements had again changed because of decisions made beyond Kobani itself.

Present day

Kobani remains an important Kurdish city and a potential target of Turkish attack. Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, identified both Jazira in Hasakah province and Kobani as possible targets of further Turkish operations. He reported an American warning that an attack on Kobani would bring sanctions against Turkey and offered to demilitarize the city under United States military patrol supervision. Such proposals reflected the continuing effort to prevent another battle at a city whose border position makes it especially exposed.

Turkish airstrikes remained a danger beyond the period of the Islamic State siege. From December 23 to 27, 2023, strikes concentrated around Hasakah, Kobani and Qamishli killed ten civilians and damaged hospitals and factories. The attacks demonstrated that the military threat to Kobani had not ended with the Islamic State’s expulsion. Its position between Turkey, Kurdish-led forces and Syrian government deployments continued to shape civilian life and local security.

Kobani’s place in the history of the Syrian civil war rests chiefly on the outcome of its 2014–2015 siege. Kurdish forces kept the city from falling, then expelled the Islamic State with intensive United States-led air support. The defense connected Syrian Kurdish fighters with Iraqi Peshmerga reinforcements and opened the way to a sustained YPG–United States partnership. Subsequent territorial gains and Turkish military pressure gave the city a second role: Kobani remained a focal point in the struggle over the future of Syrian Kurdistan and control of Syria’s northern border.