Islamic State militants back on the offensive in Syria and besieging the Kurdish city of Kobani (Ayn al-Arab in Arabic), committing massacres and kidnapping women.  Kurds are issuing a call to arms – asking their ethnic kinsmen on the Turkish side of the border to come south and join the fight.

Islamic State fighters are armed with heavy weaponry including tanks.  They seized a group of villages near Kobani in an offensive, which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – which monitors and reports details of Syria’s civil war – said had started earlier this week.

“We’ve lost touch with many of the residents living in the villages that (Islamic State) seized,” said Ocalan Iso, deputy head of the Kurdish forces in Kobani.

The US and its western allies are stepping up arms deliveries to Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq.  But Kurds in Syria say they’re being overlooked.

“We are ready to join any coalition to face Daesh," said Nawaf Khalil of Syria’s Kurdish Democratic Union Party, using an Arabic name to refer to Islamic State.  So if you’re keeping track, it’s either ISIL (used by America and most of its allies), ISIS (used by much of the corporate media), Islamic State (used by CareerSpot Global News and some corporate news outlets), Daesh (recently adopted by France), or the alternative spelling Da’ish (who cares, I lost count).  And just for fun, British Muslims who are sick of these murderous terrorists representing their religion want UK officials to call them “Un-Islamic State”.