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U.S. Cooperated Secretly with Syrian Kurds in Battle Against Islamic State at Kobane
(Wall Street Journal) Adam Entous, Joe Parkinson and Julian E. Barnes - After Islamic State made the Syrian city of Kobane a test of its ability to defy U.S. air power, Washington intervened more forcefully than it had initially intended to try to stem the group's momentum. Top U.S. officials concluded that Kobane had become too symbolically important to lose and they raced to save it. As the U.S. role rapidly evolved, U.S. and Syrian Kurdish commanders began to coordinate air and ground operations far more closely. A Syrian Kurdish general in a joint operations center in northern Iraq delivered daily battlefield intelligence reports to U.S. military planners, and helped spot targets for airstrikes on Islamic State positions. The Syrian Kurds are avowedly secular and pro-Western. They field female fighters and are committed to combating Islamic State. Kurdish officials say several Americans, including two ex-marines, and dozens of European volunteers, have enlisted to fight alongside the Kurds in Kobane.