ERBIL, IRAQ // More than 150 Kurdish peshmerga fighters left a base in northern Iraq on Tuesday headed for the battleground Syrian town of Kobani.
The town on the Turkish border has become a crucial front in the fight against ISIL, with the militant group encircling it for more than a month.
Eighty fighters were to make the journey from the base northeast of Kurdish regional capital Erbil overland through Turkey, while another 72 were flying to Turkey for the deployment to Kobani on Wednesday, a Kurdish officer said.
Halgord Hekmat, spokesman for the Kurdish ministry responsible for the peshmerga, said the fighters are “support forces” and will be armed with automatic weapons, mortars and rocket launchers.
The deployment will be open-ended. Peshmerga minister Mustafa Qader said, “They will remain there until they are no longer needed.”
Earlier, dozens of military trucks left the base in Erbil with a convoy that included two towed artillery pieces and a number of covered trucks, some of them carrying rocket launchers.
The fighters loaded machineguns and mortars into the trucks and packed bags for the trip.
Idriss Nassan, a Kurdish official from Kobani, said they have no confirmation that Iraqi peshmerga fighters were to arrive on Tuesday.
“We have no information other than what we are reading on social media or hearing on the news,” Mr Nassan said.
He added that the peshmerga command might have direct contact with the Syrian Kurdish force known as the Peoples’ Protection Units, or YPG, and for that reason Kurdish politicians in Syria are not aware of the movement.
The deployment, which comes at a time when Kurdish forces are still engaged in heavy fighting against ISIL militants in Iraq, stretches the bounds of regional autonomy, and had previously drawn flak from some Iraqi federal lawmakers.
But the Iraq’s prime minister and other senior federal officials have been publicly silent on the issue, indicating their at least tacit acceptance of the deployment.
Last week, under intense US pressure, Turkey unexpectedly announced it would allow the peshmerga fighters to cross its territory to join the fight for Kobani.
But Turkey cannot be expected to send troops to defend Kobani, only Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Syria’s own moderate opposition can save it, Turkey’s prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Tuesday.
US warplanes have been bombing ISIL positions near Kobani for weeks, but airstrikes alone will not be enough to repel the insurgents, Mr Davutoglu told the BBC.
“Saving Kobani, retaking Kobani and some area around Kobani from [ISIL], there’s a need for a military operation,” he said.
But he made clear neither Turkey nor Western allies would commit troops.
“If they [international coalition] don’t want to send their ground troops, how can they expect Turkey to send Turkish ground troops with the same risks on our border,” Mr Davutoglu said.
Kobani, which is on Turkey’s southeastern border, has become a test of the US-led coalition’s strategy for halting ISIL’s advance.
Turkish officials have rebuffed international criticism over their reluctance to do more to help Kobani’s beleaguered Kurdish defenders, whom they say are linked to the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought a decades long insurgency against Turkey.
The main Syrian Kurdish fighting force in Kobani, the YPG, has close links with the outlawed PKK.
No coalition allies have publicly called on Turkey to intervene militarily but images of Turkish troops standing by as ISIL advanced just across the border have drawn sharp criticism.
Turkey has repeatedly called for a long-term strategic plan for Syria involving the removal of President Bashar Al Assad from power, fearing that Mr Assad’s forces or Kurdish militants will fill the void if ISIL is pushed back.
Mr Davutoglu renewed calls on the United States to train and arm fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a loose coalition of groups who have been battling Assad and who have long been supported by Turkey.
“Equip and train the Free Syrian Army so that if [ISIL] leaves, the regime should not come, so that if [ISIL] leaves, PKK terrorists should not come,” he said.
“We will help any forces, any coalition, through air bases [within Turkey] or through other means if we have a common understanding to have a new pluralistic, democratic Syria.”
Washington has committed to arming the Syrian opposition to fight ISIL, but officials remain concerned about identifying effective, moderate groups in the increasingly bloody and radicalised conflict.
* Agence France-Presse, with addittional reporting from Reuters and Associated Press
