NBC’s Richard Engel: Kobani ‘Remains an Urban War Zone’
ENGEL: “The city remains in urban warzone with half of the city held by ISIS, the main front in the east and in the south. The other half is held by the Kurdish defenders who are fighting street to street, hold up in sniper positions. In the clip you just played, that was from one of the sniper positions. To get to these sniper positions, you have to go through buildings. They try and stay off the streets as much as possible. So what they do is they punch holes through walls and then go from one building through the rooms in the building, out the back wall, through the next building. And to get to that sniper position, we had to go through five or six buildings, upstairs, sometimes up ladders. If you don’t know where they are, you won’t find them. That is part of the urban warfare. You don’t know where the fighting positions are. You don't know where the snipers are and both sides have positions like these throughout the city which is one of the reasons that it’s so dangerous and it’s so difficult to make progress.”
MELVIN: “How many people have left Kobani to your knowledge - a rough estimate? And has the government of Turkey’s commitment -- has their commitment changed at all?”
ENGEL: “Probably 175,000 people or 200,000 people in that range have left Kobani in the surrounding villages. They saw ISIS coming. So first the surrounding villages evacuated. They crossed the border and came into Turkey. There are a lot of Turkish refugees, excuse me, a lot of Syrian refugees in the city where I am now and throughout this border region, but they did anticipate this coming. Some civilians stayed behind, but mostly fighters remained in the city. The Turkish position is one that is very fraught. Turkey has not been cooperative for the defenders of Kobani. Mostly that Turkish border is sealed. The U.S. has been putting a lot of pressure on Turkey to allow more weapons, more medical supplies to flow through here to reach Kobani. But Turkey has a long conflict with the Kurdish people in this country and in Syria. And Turkey has not been overwhelmingly cooperative to help arm the Kurds in this region.”
