By International Commune of Rojava
January 26, 2025, marks the tenth anniversary of the victory in Kobanê. After 134 days of resistance, Kobanê became the symbol of resistance against the Islamic State. When the IS offensive began against the small town, which was one of the starting points of the Rojava Revolution in 2012, the whole world was suddenly reporting on the Kurdish struggle. A wave of international solidarity swept across national borders in a way that no one would have previously thought possible.
In 2014, the revolution in Rojava was still young. It had only been two years since independence had been declared in three cities in northern Syria in the early hours of July 19, 2012, and the troops of the Assad regime had been driven out. However, this was only possible thanks to the high level of organization already built up among the population by this time. The social self-defense structures, which were able to secure territorial control over the liberated areas and protect them from attacks by other forces, played a significant role in this. Just as the outbreak of the Syrian civil war created opportunities for revolutionary forces, Islamist militias and regional and imperialist forces also attempted to exploit the resulting power vacuum.
After a short time, the revolution had to prove its defensive capabilities and fend off attacks by the Syrian Al-Qaeda. Thanks to the resistance of the population and their organization into self-defense forces, these were successfully repelled, and the newly won freedom was asserted. With the founding of the Islamic State in Iraq in 2014 and the proclamation of the caliphate, a new dark chapter opened in the Middle East. Cities with millions of inhabitants, such as Mosul, were overrun in a single night, and the number of jihadists grew with every village and city they seized. The images of the atrocities committed by IS shocked the Middle East and the whole world at the time. The beheading of civilians and captured soldiers stoked fear to such an extent that it seemed as if no one could stop the advance of IS.
After IS spread from Iraq to Syria in 2014 and quickly gained control over large parts of the country, it gathered all its strength for the attack on the small Kurdish town of Kobanê, which lies on the Syrian-Turkish border. It is now known that this attack was carried out as a result of an agreement between IS and the Turkish state.
The attack on Kobanê began on September 13, 2014, with the Islamists advancing from three directions with tanks and heavy artillery. The capture of Kobanê was intended to prevent the areas of the revolution in northeastern Syria from growing together and to ensure the supply of weapons and fighters by capturing border crossings to Turkey. From 2014, Islamists from various countries began to join IS and enter Syria via Turkey. By supplying weapons to the jihadists, Turkey aimed to ensure that the revolution in the Kurdish regions was crushed.
Within a few days, 300 villages in the region were seized by the Islamists, and hundreds of people who did not manage to flee were killed in inhuman ways. On October 5, 2014, the fighter Arîn Mîrkan blew herself up on the strategic Miştenur hill outside the city gates. With her action, she tore deep holes in the ranks of the Islamists and sent a signal to the few thousand freedom fighters in the city, as well as to all the people of the world: Kobanê will not fall!
“The images of Şehîd Arîn Mîrkan are still clear in my mind. She blew herself up to stop the advance of IS. Other friends also sacrificed themselves alongside her.”
– Rûbar, commander in Kobanê
After her action, it became clear that they would not retreat from IS, despite their numerical inferiority and the fact that they had to defend themselves with a few Kalashnikovs and light machine guns against a heavily armed enemy. After the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan called on the entire Kurdish people to defend Kobanê, people from all parts of Kurdistan flocked to defend the city. Crowds of people who had gathered at the border in Turkey overran Turkish soldiers and the border fence to cross into Kobanê and take up arms. Young people also came from southern and eastern Kurdistan to fight in Kobanê. This not only broke down physical borders but also made visible the unity of the Kurdish people, who have been divided into four nation-states since 1923.
The participation of Arab combat units alongside the YPJ and YPG in the fight against IS laid the foundation for the establishment of the multi-ethnic SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), which today defends north and east Syria. At the same time, a wave of international solidarity developed in defense of the city. People all over the world took to the streets and expressed their solidarity with the courageous defenders of the city.
“Overall, you can say that we all had great hope and felt this deep friendship at every moment. We knew what we were dying for.”
The Islamic State had already succeeded in penetrating the city center when a counterattack was launched. House after house was recaptured, and the jihadists were dealt heavy blows day and night. For the first time, IS was stopped by a force that, despite its material inferiority, was superior to the enemy in its beliefs and its ideals. The women who fought side by side with the men in the frontline positions played an extraordinary role in this.
“The truth is, most women fought better than us men. The fact that they fought alongside us also gave us more strength.”
The IS fighters were most afraid of the female YPJ fighters. This was not only because, according to Islamist ideology, being killed by a woman means one cannot enter paradise, but also because the YPJ fighters dealt the heaviest blows to IS through their professional and collective fighting style. As a result of the resistance and the pressure built up by the international solidarity movement in the period that followed, the international anti-IS coalition’s entry into the war was accompanied by air support from those states that had previously declared, only a short time before, that the city had fallen. Even if this hypocritical support from the air only began when the people and the YPJ and YPG had already secured the outcome of the battle, it showed that a people who organize and defend themselves can become a force and put imperialist forces in a bind.
The resistance in Kobanê was a stab in the heart of IS, as well as in the heart of the Turkish state. The most notorious IS fighters and commanders were killed during the fighting. Few organizations in the region have been able to develop such a practice in urban warfare as the Kurdish freedom movement. In addition to the military victory in Kobanê, which massively weakened IS, it was the psychological effect of the victory in particular that turned the tide. After January 26, 2015, IS was pushed back. Village after village was liberated, and a counterattack was launched. With the liberation of the cities of Minbic in 2016, the IS capital Raqqa in 2018, and finally the Deir ez-Zor region in 2019, the revolution spread.
Behind the military front line, work began in society, which had lived for years under the terrifying regime of IS. Thus, it was the liberation of Kobanê that laid the foundation for the project of a democratic, multi-ethnic Syria being built in North and East Syria. Through ISIS, the oppression of women, which has been practiced for centuries in the Middle East in the name of religion, was revealed in its most terrible form. With the destruction of IS, the end of this patriarchal system was also initiated, and the Jin, Jiyan, Azadî revolution began to spread to other parts of the Middle East.
Humanity was defended in the fight against IS. Over 12,000 fighters from the self-defense units gave their lives for this cause, and more than twice as many were seriously injured. Kobanê thus became a symbol and also a reminder that nothing is stronger than the will of a people to live in freedom. Today, the Turkish state has once again set its sights on Kobanê, this time with the help of its mercenary SNA troops. After its defeat in 2015, it is once again making preparations to destroy the Democratic Autonomous Administration and its project of democratic confederalism, women’s liberation, and the fraternity of peoples.
The last few weeks, since the attacks by the SNA and the Turkish state, have shown that the peoples of the region are prepared today, as they were then, to defend Kobanê and the entire revolution in North and East Syria by all possible means.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Balochistan Post or any of its editors.