Who attacked Kobanê, and why... Amed Dicle

On June 25, a savage attack was conducted on Kobanê. One of the groups involved in the attack crossed into Kobanê from Turkey. An ISIS member captured alive confessed that the plan had been made in Turkey.

Several days after the liberation of Tal Abyad from ISIS, Turkish authorities held a series of talks with some international powers in a relation with the Rojava administration regarding the 'concern over border security'.

Rather than voicing its concerns over the extirpation of ISIS from its border, the Turkish side formulates its demands as 'risks to be caused by PYD-PKK relation', and tries to convince the powers involved in Syria on this subject.

As a consequence of the 'PYD is more dangerous than ISIS' diplomacy which accelerated after Tal Abyad victory, the international powers in question proposed the Rojava administration to have a meeting with the Turkish side.

This planned meeting between Rojava officials and the Turkish side, did take place.

And, two days later, on June 25, a savage attack was conducted on Kobanê. One of the groups involved in the attack crossed into Kobanê from Turkey. An ISIS member captured alive confessed that the plan had been made in Turkey.

However, during the meeting of two days ago, the Turkish and Rojava side made mutual commitments regarding border security. This is what the Rojava asayesh (public security) force must have relied on, as they focused their attention on not the border but mainly the Raqqa line. The developments, however, proved that the most serious threat against Rojava came from the Turkish border. It unfortunately led up to heavy consequences as a total of 233 civilians, mostly women and children, were savagely massacred.

When Saleh Moslem was invited to Turkey in July of 2013, groups gathering in Antep in preparation of a massacre in Kurdish villages near Aleppo, were taken to the border to the accompaniment of an official escort.

When a Turkish delegation met the Rojava administration in the summer months of 2014, a preparation was being made for an attack on Kobanê.

When the already known savage attack on Kobanê began on 15 September 2014, weapons were delivered into a train that stopped in villages without a station on Tal Abyad- Akçakale border under the supervision of Turkish soldiers.

On October 4, Saleh Moslem was invited to Turkey and directed words which meant 'Our door is open to you if you consider surrender'.

Moslem left Turkey, answering that; 'No, we will resist'.

HDP Co-President Selahattin Demirtaş stated that he had had a 10-minutes phone conversation with Davutoğlu on October 5. He later expressed that the Prime Minister was, however, not serious.

Just one day later, Erdoğan started the process of his own fall by saying that 'Kobanê is about to fall'.

Whenever there took place an attack plan on Rojava, open or secret diplomacy was put into action in parallelly.

June 25 massacre is the most recent example of this truth.

Yet, this most recent attack shows that Turkey has entered a new phase in its negative policy against Rojava because it will remain insufficient to describe it just as an ISIS attack. The trigger was pulled by ISIS but some others trained in Turkey did also take place in the attack.

Following a training in its own lands, Turkey sends these so-called FSA groups into Syria. Some of them took part in the most recent Kobanê attack. Many indications reveal that this attack was carried out by ISIS and these groups jointly. An Egyptian assailant captured alive by YPG swore at ISIS and told that he wasn't one of them, that he didn't know them, and that he himself was a soldier of the overthrown Egyptian leader Mursi. The assailant gives further information about ISIS and Turkey which will be heard about more in the coming period.

The purpose of this savage attack was not just to commit a massacre, as is being claimed by some. It was to occupy Kobanê once again, as the groups crossing there from Turkey were promised to 'be provided with reinforcements as they keep fighting there'. During the same hours, ISIS groups launched attacks in south and west Kobanê as well, but all these attacks were broken.

The aim of the planners of the attack was to extend the fighting there over a period of time, to intimidate civilians and drive them out of the city, to lead the groups that formerly crossed into Akçakale from Tal Abyad to Kobanê, and to extend the clashes from the town center to villages, rather than starting the battle from villages and extending it to the town center.

This plan was meant to send back the YPG forces heading towards Ayn İssa, Raqqa, Jarablus and Sırrin, to attack from behind, and to turn the Tal Abyad-Kobanê region into a combat area.

This was going to hinder the union of Rojava cantons without sending soldiers to Jarablus, and enable the waving of the 'black' flag Turkey is very much fond of along the borders.

*This piece by journalist Amed Dicle was translated from Turkish by ANF English service.