Syria refugee flood to Turkey hits 100,000

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By DESMOND BUTLER

KUCUK KENDIRCILER, Turkey (AP) — The 19-year-old Kurdish militant, who has been fighting the Islamic State group in Syria, brought his family across the border into Turkey to safety Sunday. But in the tranquility of a Turkish tea garden just miles from the frontier, Dalil Boras vowed to head back after nightfall to continue the fight.

Pulling a wad of Syrian bills from his pocket, the young fighter — who has already lost a 17-year-old brother to the Islamic militants' brutal advance — said that if the Turkish border guards tried to stop him, money would persuade them.

Boras and his relatives are among some 100,000 Syrians, mostly Kurds, who have flooded into Turkey since Thursday, escaping an Islamic State offensive that has pushed the conflict nearly within eyeshot of the Turkish border.

The al-Qaida breakaway group, which has established an Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by its harsh version of Islamic law in territory it captured straddling the Syria-Iraq border, has in recent days advanced into Kurdish regions of Syria that border Turkey, where fleeing refugees on Sunday reported atrocities that included stonings, beheadings and the torching of homes.

FULL story at link.



Dalil Boras, a 19-year-old Kurdish militant who has been fighting the Islamic State group in Syria, speaks to the Associated Press in Suruc, Turkey, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014. Dalil brought his family over the border to Turkey to safety Sunday. But in the tranquility of a Turkish tea garden a few miles from the border, he vowed to head back to the fight Sunday night. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140921/eu--turkey-syria-refugees-77851b1914.html

[flamingdem]

1. Isis also flees to Turkey to safety

I'm guessing they don't head to the same cities, but still.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Monday update : Turkey clamps down on Syria border after Kurdish unrest.

Turkey has begun to close some of its border crossings with Syria after at least 70,000 Kurdish refugees entered the country since Friday.

This follows clashes on Sunday between Turkish security forces and protesting Kurds. The closures may stop Kurdish fighters entering Syria to fight IS.

Most refugees are from the town of Kobane, where a massacre by the approaching militants is feared.

>

Turkey has taken in more than 847,000 refugees since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began three years ago.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29306088

[Fred Sanders]

3. So who still thinks NATO member Turkey has done nothing? 1 million folks to care for is not nothing.

The mass media has really done a number on Americans. Again.

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. Turkey has done plenty, not much of it good.

It provided safe havens for ISIS and other rebels.

It allowed unfettered transit across its territory for foreign jihadis.

It interfered in the internal affairs of its neighbor, Syria, with the grave miscalculation that the regime would fall easily.

It refused to join the new alliance against ISIS.

It cut some kind of deal with ISIS to free its hostages, and it isn't talking.

Turkey has really helped make the mess the region faces right now.

[Fred Sanders]

5. ISIS has been holding almost 50 diplomatic hostages since July.....kind of puts things into context.

[Comrade Grumpy]

6. And what kind of deal did Turkey make to get those hostages back? You tell me.

Turkey really helped start this fire. ISIS held the hostages for the last couple of months; that doesn't explain or excuse Turkey's behavior regarding Syria for the past three years.

[Fred Sanders]

7. I have no idea what the deal was, except 50 families in Turkey are relieved it did not take a war to

get them back. And no one was beheaded, Turks are not afraid of ISIS as Americans are, they had no propaganda value as an American hostage has.

If ISIS can not put fear into the hearts of nearby Turkey, how do they in far away America?