A-Infos (en) Spaine, Regeneracion: Ten Years After the Kobane Massacre in Syria and the Internationalist Struggle Against Daesh By Angel Malatesta (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

At the end of June 2015, Daesh launched a vengeful and extremely cruel 
attack against the Kurdish city of Kobane, which had resisted its 
offensive for months. Once the northern Syrian canton was liberated in 
Rojava, Daesh mercenaries entered the city and detonated a car bomb, in 
addition to firing indiscriminately from three different positions 
within the city. This resulted in the deaths of 223 civilians and 35 
Kurdish fighters; while 92 members of the Islamic State were eliminated. 
All international attention and the attention of the anti-fascist 
resistance were focused on the Kurdish people and the strength they had 
gained through their temporary autonomy in the context of the Syrian War.

Another sad but heroic date was marked in the calendar of the Kurdish 
revolution, an organized people who had been resisting for decades and 
who, three years earlier, had taken a step forward in their historic 
commitment to a transformation based on democratic confederalism. Ten 
years earlier, one of the greatest internationalist feats of struggle 
against fascism, on par with other revolutions and guerrilla movements 
of the previous century, had also been completed: the Battle of Kobane.

However, Kurdish autonomy was sustained by a very thin thread, amidst 
the ever-contradictory current balances of geopolitics and the 
positioning of world powers. This situation has changed since the end of 
the Syrian conflict and the new government in Damascus led by Hay'at 
Tharir al-Sham (HTS), an authoritarian Islamist faction that overthrew 
the regime of Bashar al-Assad, an ally of the Turkish government, and a 
belligerent against the Kurdish-majority SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) 
and its autonomous administration. However, we will analyze this in 
other articles, relying on texts received through our sister 
organization, also specialized in Syria, Tekosîna Anarsîst, which is 
rooted in Rojava.

"They Shall Not Pass" resounds in Rojava. The resistance against Daesh 
in Kobane.

Between 2011 and 2012, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) were 
formed in Syria, along with the YPJ (Yekîneyên Parastina Jin), which 
were protection units made up of women. In the context of the Syrian 
War, these were the Kurdish forces defending their people and 
confronting Daesh in a war that began very unevenly, involving 60,000 
Rojava militiamen and women. The advance of the Islamic State had met 
with no resistance; even Al-Qaeda had a Syrian branch known as Al-Nusra, 
integrated among the Syrian rebels fighting against the official regime 
of Bashar al-Assad. Powers such as the US, Russia, and Turkey had not 
yet deployed their full weapons and geostrategic capabilities, which 
they would begin to develop shortly afterward, although operations were 
already underway in the region through the International Coalition 
against the Islamic State, which would later become very active.

In July 2012, the city of Kobane had come under the control of Kurdish 
entities that began a process of autonomy in northern Syria. However, 
since January 2014, the drinking water supply was severely damaged when 
Daesh captured the border town of Jarabulus, while in July of that same 
year the siege tightened, leaving a large part of the territory 
completely besieged by Daesh. In this context, Daesh began its advance 
in mid-September 2014, capturing dozens of towns in the Kobane canton 
and displacing thousands of Kurdish civilians toward the Turkish border 
in a life-or-death situation. On September 20, Daesh was just 15 
kilometers from the city of Kobane, and 45,000 refugees crossed the 
border into Turkey. In the following days, Daesh's advance continued, as 
they began shelling the eastern and southern areas of Kobane with tank 
artillery, leading to the first urban clashes. By September 24, the 
number of refugees crossing the Turkish border had reached 130,000 
civilians. The YPG/YPJ resistance received reinforcements crossing from 
the Turkish border in early October. They also fought against PKK 
(Kurdistan Workers' Party) militants, the Peshmerga of the Kurdish 
Regional Government in Iraq, and battalions of the International 
Liberation Brigade—brigades made up of anarcho-communists, Marxists, 
trade unionists, and even an LGBTQ+ group.

By October 4, the entire city had been evacuated, and was empty except 
for the defending forces who would put up resistance.
Faced with the advance of Daesh, these forces had withdrawn from the 
outer neighborhoods to the city center, ready to fight house to house. 
In about five days, more than 40% of the city had been taken by Daesh, 
but in mid-October, the Kurdish counteroffensive began. The 
International Coalition's bombings broke some supply lines for convoys 
and tanks on the outskirts of Kobane, while Kurdish forces received 
materials, ammunition, and heavy weapons to counterattack from the hills 
west of the city. This shifting balance of forces was key in early 
November, when urban terrain began to be won in street fighting against 
Daesh, and hundreds of the approximately 10,000 fighters used by Daesh 
were eliminated. The Kurdish forces numbered about 2,500 fighters and 
lost more than 500.

The advance that autumn of 2014 was unstoppable, and although Daesh was 
slowly expelled from the city of Kobane, this objective was achieved in 
late January 2015, when the second phase of the offensive began, 
recapturing hundreds of towns in the Kobane canton in just three months 
as they pushed south from Kurdish forces and liberated the entire 
eastern bank of the Euphrates River.

Daesh revenge and the terrorist attack on Kobane.

At dawn on Thursday, June 25, 2015, a group of nearly 100 Daesh 
mercenaries managed to infiltrate the city of Kobane disguised as 
Kurdish and Free Syrian Army militiamen. The stage for the massacre was 
set for the attacks that would take place that day. These Daesh 
mercenaries detonated a car bomb inside the city at a busy intersection 
near the Turkish border crossing. They entrenched themselves in three 
prominent positions, opening fire on the civilian population and holding 
dozens hostage for a day and a half. Kurdish forces quickly protected 
the population, recommending they remain in their homes while a rapid 
response was launched to repel the attack.

This Daesh attack was well-organized and demonstrated relevant 
background information, as it occurred during a week in which there was 
a smaller contingent of Kurdish forces in the city. It was a response to 
a situation that had become unbearable for Daesh, with the continued 
retreat of its positions and the risk of completely losing contact with 
the Turkish border, which gave it access to resources, materiel, and 
mercenaries trained in Türkiye. Daesh wanted to terrorize the local 
Kurdish population to empty the city and launch a larger offensive to 
recapture it, to control the border territory toward Jarabulus and also 
to halt the southern offensive against the city of Raqqa, cutting off 
its rearguard bases.

The week before these attacks, Daesh had suffered significant setbacks, 
having managed to liberate the border town of Tell Abyad in northeastern 
Syria. Kurdish forces had also captured Ain Issa, about fifty kilometers 
from Raqqa, a Daesh stronghold at the time. It was these defeats that 
led them to hatch this vengeful but strategically thought-out plan to 
undermine the Kurdish position in what had been the heart of their 
resistance.

However, Daesh once again found itself up against the determination of 
the Kurds and their self-defense forces. Throughout the day of June 25th 
and into the following day, clashes raged again in the streets of Kobane 
to eliminate the mercenaries who had entered the city to spread terror. 
A school where a final contingent of Daesh mercenaries had barricaded 
themselves had even had to be blown up, once it was confirmed that no 
hostages remained. The Kurdish YPG recaptured control of Kobane, combing 
street after street to ensure that no Daesh mercenaries remained hidden. 
The overall death toll was more than 200 civilians killed in their own 
homes or at close range in the streets of Kobane, and another 20 were 
later found dead in a nearby town at the start of the assault. In the 
canton of Cizîrê, Daesh also attacked the city of Hasaka, where it took 
control of two neighborhoods, but the attack was quickly met with a 
favorable response from Kurdish forces in combat.

A few days later, Turkish President Recep Erdogan attempted to clean up 
his image by speaking out against Daesh and rejecting the claims that 
clearly accused him of strengthening it vis-à-vis the Kurdish 
administration. On the other hand, ten years ago, Turkey was already 
directly threatening a ground invasion of Syrian Kurdistan, which would 
ultimately occur in 2018.
One consequence of these Daesh attacks in Kobane and the 
counteroffensive that would be organized in the fall of the following 
year was the creation of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), an alliance 
of mainly Kurdish militias, but with Arab, Syrian, Turkmen, Assyrian, 
and Armenian members. From then until today, they have been the military 
forces fighting for a secular, democratic, and federal Syria, embodying 
the principles of Kurdish democratic confederalism.

A territory where pieces on the geopolitical chessboard have been 
shifting for months and where the Kurds are trying to reposition 
themselves by defending their project of political autonomy. And a 
political space where we revolutionary anarchists must do an 
immeasurable amount of balance and analysis, clarifying which paths, 
tools, and strategies add up, and another exercise in self-criticism 
about which paths we have allowed to be romanticized to such an extent 
that they prevent us from seeing a truly combative horizon 
internationally against capitalism.

Ángel Malatesta, Liza activist

https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2025/07/08/a-diez-anos-de-la-masacre-de-kobane-en-siria-y-la-lucha-internacionalista-contra-daesh/
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