After Kobani, where is Islamic State's next target?
The besieged strategic Kurdish town of Hasakah, swollen by an influx of refugees and barrel-bombed by Syrian regime forces, is coming under fire from the Islamic State.
In a newspaper interview in November 2013, Salih Muslim, the co-chairman of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party of Syria (PYD) had predicted: “The situation in Hasakah is sensitive. If pushed, it could lead to Kurdish-Arab clashes.” News reports from the northeast Syria town of Hasakah, which we don’t usually hear much about, proved Muslim’s warnings were on the mark. Clashes that erupted in Hasakah on Jan. 17 between the PYD’s military wing, the People's Defense Units (YPG) and National Defense Forces, an auxiliary of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army, couldn’t be halted and inflicted casualties on both sides.
Reports coming from south of Hasakah say the Islamic State (IS) is massing forces for an offensive to capture Hasakah while coming under coalition air force attacks in the same area.
