Kurds and the US intensify fight against IS for key Syrian town of Kobani (LIVE BLOG)

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The geopolitical shifts in Iraq and Syria

Foreign Policy asks a key question: "Do Iraq and Syria no longer really exist?"

Author Joel Rayburn weighs in: 

"Syria no longer exists, certainly not in the way that we have known it, and I think the Syrian state can never be reconstituted within its old borders. In other words, some new political arrangement is going to emerge in Syria, and in my opinion it is highly unlikely to be a unitary state," Rayburn tells Foreign Policy. "But I do think that Iraq still exists, and that there's still some hope that it can remain intact."

Read the piece here.

Satellite images of Kobani

No plan for Egyptian military action against IS in Iraq, Syria

Reuters — Egypt has no plans to provide the United States with direct military assistance in its war against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria even though American aerial bombardment may not be enough to defeat the group, the country's prime minister said.

But Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb left open the possibility of military action if Cairo's Gulf Arab allies are threatened by the Al Qaeda offshoot. With one of the biggest armies in the Middle East and wide experience in battling militancy, Egypt is regarded as a vital ally for the United States, which provides billions of dollars in annual aid to Cairo.

Mehleb said Egypt's priority is ensuring stability at home, where security officials face resilient insurgents based in the Sinai Peninsula and regard militants in neighboring Libya as a serious threat.

"For the Egyptian army the most important thing is its borders and the stability of its country and the protection of its country," Mehleb told Reuters in an interview.

So, how exactly is the battle in Kobani going?

The BBC's Paul Adams offers some perspective:

"The town no longer looks as isolated and desperate as it did just 10 days ago," Adams writes. "The three elements seen as vital to prevent its capture by IS — air strikes, resupply and extra manpower — are all now happening or on the way."

Read Adams's piece here. 

France launches fresh strikes against IS in Iraq

Agence France-Presse — French fighter jets have carried out a third round of air strikes against Islamic State jihadists in support of Iraqi ground forces, the defense ministry said Monday.

Two Rafale jets on Sunday destroyed two pick-up trucks belonging to the extremist group, which has seized vast swaths of Iraq and Syria.

US humanitarian aid isn't going where it's meant to

"While US warplanes strike at the militants of the so-called Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq, truckloads of US and Western aid has been flowing into territory controlled by the jihadists, assisting them to build their terror-inspiring 'caliphate,'" writes Jamie Dettmer in The Daily Beast.

Read it here.

The ongoing humanitarian crisis

Erika Solomon, a Financial Times writer based in the Middle East, reports:

US reports 12 air strikes against Islamic State in Syria, Iraq

Reuters — The US military conducted six air strikes against Islamic State militants near the Syrian border town of Kobani on Sunday and Monday, the US Central Command said in a statement.

US forces, in coordination with Iraqi ground troops, also conducted six air strikes against the militant group in Iraq near Fallujah and Bayji with help from France and the United Kingdom, Central Command said.

On Islamic State's strategy to win hearts and minds

GlobalPost's Tracey Shelton reports from Sulaymaniyah, Iraq:

The world is now familiar with the most grisly of IS propaganda. The videos that have made international headlines and grabbed viewers on YouTube and Twitter show massacres, executions and beheadings. These shows of uncompromising violence are meant to deter anyone who may oppose the group, and so far, they’ve succeeded: both Iraqi and Kurdish forces have withdrawn from IS onslaughts against populations across Iraq, often without putting up a fight or even hanging around long enough to warn defenseless civilians they were on their own.

Far less dramatic, and largely unnoticed by international media, is the equally strong IS campaign to win the hearts and minds of those they wish to make part of their "caliphate." While portraying themselves as merciless warriors on the battlefield, IS has also gone to great lengths to show that living under their rule, at least for Muslims, is not so bad.

Read the rest of Shelton's piece here.

A snapshot of the current situation in Kobani

Trying to spot family in a war zone

AFP/Getty photographer Bulent Kilic captured these photos of Syrian Kurds trying to find their relative Zamani Suruc, who is reportedly fighting IS in Kobani. The photos were taken from the Turkish Syrian border village of Mursitpinar.

BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images

BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images

A shift in strategy re: Kobani

Business Insider's Colin Campbell and Brett LoGiurato have a good short piece looking at why US Secretary of State John Kerry has changed this stance regarding the importance of the fighting in Kobani:

"Earlier in October, Kerry was much more dismissive toward Kobani," Campbell and LoGiurato write. "He urged the public to take a broader view of the conflict and to not simply focus on the town, which he said was not strategically important."

But according to a senior administration official, "the Islamic State had prioritized the city, shifting significant numbers of fighters and weapons there. So the US decided to prioritize it as well," they write.

Read on here. 

Turkey to help Kurdish peshmerga fighters

Reuters — Turkey is facilitating the passage of Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters to the besieged Syrian border town of Kobani, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday.

But he stopped short of saying Ankara backed a decision by the United States to airdrop weapons to the town's defenders. Islamic State fighters have for a month laid siege to Kobani, on the Turkish frontier, and only intense bombardments by US-led coalition warplanes have halted their advance.

The United States said it had airdropped medical supplies and weapons to Kurdish forces near Kobani on Sunday, provided by the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq.

Watch live video of the fighting in Kobani on NBC News:

Ankara has been under mounting pressure to go beyond humanitarian assistance for those fleeing the violence, but has up to now refused to send its own military across the border or allow arms to flow through its territory into the town.

The Turkish authorities view those defending Kobani with deep suspicion because of their links with the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), outlawed in Turkey as a terrorist group after fighting a three-decades long insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in southeast Turkey.

"We are facilitating the passage of peshmerga forces to Kobani to provide support. Our talks on this subject are continuing," Cavusoglu said at a news conference on Monday. He said Turkey did not want Kobani to fall to Islamic State and had been in "full co-operation with the international coalition over Kobani."