Interview with Premier of Kobane Canton Anwar Moslem on the Situation in Kobane in 27th day of the resistance against fierce ISIS attacks

October 11, 2014 at 9:30 am local time

Fighting continued in East and South of the city. As a result of YPG ambush a large number of ISIS members were killed Friday night.

Although it has been 5 days that ISIS entered east part of the city, their attempts to advance failed. ISIS controls about 25-30% of the city in east part of Kobane, only Asayish [police] building and the courthouse are under their control. Asayish building was destroyed on Thursday as a result of US airstrikes and all ISIS members inside were killed. Other than that they don’t have any important locations. The morale of the people inside the city is high.

Coalition airstrikes also inflicted serious damage on ISIS yesterday and last night. On the ground YPG and FSA groups are fighting bravely shoulder to shoulder with very modest weapons. FSA groups also appealed to US and west for heavy weapons.

We need a humanitarian corridor under the supervision international community for thousands of civilians inside city. UN statement about the civilians inside Kobane is important and we are expecting urgent action from UN. But the real number if civilians is much higher than what Mr. Mistura announced.  People here need water, food, medicine, milk and other basic needs.

Moslem strongly denied some reports that Iraqi Kurdistan Region sent them weapons recently.

“We have not received any weapons from Southern [Iraqi] Kurds, but I am appealing once more that we desperately need their help. I want to stress that we need effective weapons from US, Southern Kurdistan and the West so that we can fight ISIS better. We are confident that YPG and FSA groups can expel ISIS from Kobane if we have heavy weapons.”

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