Siege of Kobanî
2014 ISIL offensive in northern Syria during the Syrian Civil War / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Siege of Kobanî?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
The siege of Kobanî was launched by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on 13 September 2014,[71] in order to capture the Kobanî Canton and its main city of Kobanî (also known as Kobanê or Ayn al-Arab) in northern Syria, in the de facto autonomous region of Rojava.
Siege of Kobanî | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Syrian Civil War, Rojava-Islamist conflict, and the American-led intervention in the Syrian Civil War | |||||||||
A map showing the progression of the siege of Kobanî, from October 2014 to January 2015 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Belligerents | |||||||||
Rojava | Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Salih Muslim Muhammad[14] Narin Afrin[15] Mahmud Berxwedan[16] Ismet Sheikh Hassan[17] Meryem Kobani[18] Hebun Sinya †[19] Faisal Saadoun ("Abu Layla")[20][21] Muhammad Mustafa Ali ("Abu Adel")[22] Hasan al-Banawi ("Abu Juma") (from 18 November 2014)[23] Abdul Qader Sheikh Muhammad ("Abdo Dushka")[24] Saleh Ali ("Abu Furat") †[25] Nizar al-Khatib ("Abu Laith") (until 18 November 2014)[26] |
Abu Ayman al-Iraqi † (Head of Military Shura)[27] | ||||||||
Units involved | |||||||||
MLKP[39] |
| ||||||||
Strength | |||||||||
1,500–2,000 YPG & YPJ (Kurdish claims as of 1 November 2014)[47] |
9,000+ fighters (Kurdish claims)[52] 30–50 MBTs[53] 2 UAVs[54][55] | ||||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||||
YPG & YPJ: 562[56]–741[57] killed (3 MLKP)[39] FSA and Jabhat al-Akrad: 29[56]–72[16][58] killed Peshmerga: 1 killed (accident)[59][60] |
1,422[*][56]–2,000[61] killed (per SOHR) 2,000+[**] killed (per U.S.)[62] 1,068–5,000[**] killed,[63][64][65] 18 tanks destroyed[59][66] 2 drones shot down (per Kurds)[55] | ||||||||
Hundreds of civilians killed[56][67] Over 400,000 civilians fled to Turkey[68] | |||||||||
* Additional hundreds of deaths by airstrikes[69] ** 1,000+ by US-led Coalition airstrikes[70] |
By 2 October 2014, the Islamic State succeeded in capturing 350 Kurdish villages and towns in the vicinity of Kobanê,[72] generating a wave of some 300,000 Kurdish refugees, who fled across the border into Turkey's Şanlıurfa Province.[73] By January 2015, this had risen to 400,000.[68] The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and some Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions (under the Euphrates Volcano joint operations room), Peshmerga of the Kurdistan Regional Government, and American and US-allied Arab militaries' airstrikes began to recapture Kobane.[74]
On 26 January 2015, the YPG and its allies, backed by the continued US-led airstrikes, began to retake the city, driving ISIL into a steady retreat. The city of Kobanê was fully recaptured on 27 January; however, most of the remaining villages in the Kobanî Canton remained under ISIL control.[2][75] The YPG and its allies then made rapid advances in rural Kobanî, with ISIL withdrawing 25 km from the city of Kobanî by 2 February.[76][77] By late April 2015, ISIL had lost almost all of the villages it had captured in the Canton, but maintained control of a few dozen villages it seized in the northwestern part of the Raqqa Governorate.[3] In late June 2015, ISIL launched a new offensive against the city, killing at least 233 civilians,[78][79] but were quickly driven back.
The battle for Kobanî was considered a turning point in the war against Islamic State.[80] The siege was referred by some to be the "Kurdish Stalingrad".[81][82]