March 29, 2015: In early March the Kurdish government of northern Iraq sent the fourth detachment of troops to Kobane in Syria. The Iraqi Kurds have been doing this monthly since late October 2014 to help defeat a determined ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) effort to take the largely Kurdish town. At first and for over a month Turkey refused to allow the Iraqi Kurds to move through Turkey to get to Kobane. Sending the troops in via northern Syria was not practical because of all the fighting going on throughout the area. Finally the Turks relented, largely because of all the media attention the Syrian Kurds were getting for holding off this major ISIL attack. By January 2014 ISIL admitted defeat and withdrew from Kobane. Now the Kurds are pushing ISIL back in this part of northern Syria, fighting the Islamic terrorists in dozens of Kurdish villages surrounding Kobane.

The Iraqi Kurds are specialized combat troops, many trained by American Special Forces. Each group of Iraqi Kurds goes to Kobane for a month, so as not to wear them out and lose them in the intense fighting these. Each of the four groups sent so far is company size (120-160 troops) and return to train other Kurds on how best to handle ISIL tactics.