A group of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters, numbering around 200, arrived in Turkey this week together with heavy weapons that will be deployed in the northern Syrian town of Kobani to assist local Kurdish fighters as they try to roll back advances by the Islamic State (IS).

The arrival of the peshmerga, however, has prompted questions about the ability of such a limited force to alter the military situation against IS, which also has heavy weapons and a large number of highly motivated fighters. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has indicated that the peshmerga will not engage in direct combat with IS, but will merely provide artillery support and training.

Analysts agree that the underlying motive behind engaging the peshmerga in Syria is more political than military. Opinion, however, is varied as to what this motive is. Meanwhile, rumor is rife in Ankara that the government’s decision to allow the peshmerga to cross over Turkish territory has seriously riled the Turkish military.

The scenes that attended the arrival of the peshmerga in Turkey in the early hours of Oct. 29 were said to have also fueled the military’s anger. One group of 150 peshmerga fighters was flown in to Sanliurfa in southeastern Turkey from Erbil, the capital of Kurdish northern Iraq.