By James Reinl

NEW YORK - Syria’s Kurds face a “humanitarian catastrophe” amid fighting between Kurdish and Islamic State (IS) forces, which have triggered a mass-exodus into Turkey, top Kurdish official Abdulhakeem Bachar told Rudaw.

“We have a real humanitarian catastrophe, affecting more than 200,000 people and more than 100,000 on the borders with Turkey,” said Bachar, Vice President of the Syrian National Coalition and head of the Kurdish National Council.

“They need everything: tents, blankets, food and baby milk. ISIS is a terrorist group. It must be fought and defeated. We have some military brigades, but they cannot defend the Kurdish residents of northern Syria on their own.”

As many as 140,000 Syrian Kurds have fled across Turkey’s border since IS, a sectarian Sunni militia that is also known as ISIS and ISIL, launched a major offensive on Kobane last week. The Kurdish-dominated area is also known as Ayn al-Arab.

Bachar warned that local Kurdish militias have failed to defend locals there because they operate as rival factions rather than unite against IS, a well-armed sectarian militia of more than 30,000 fighters that has imposed harsh rule across Sunni-majority areas straddling the Iraq-Syria border.

“We need a Kurdish military force that is not linked to a specific Kurdish party, but operates across the board to protect civilians,” Bachar told Rudaw. “We must organize a professional military force, united and answerable to one political authority, the (Syrian) National Coalition.”

The Kurdish leader spoke with Rudaw on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, where some 140 leaders gathered to discuss defeating the Islamists, an Ebola outbreak in West Africa and other threats to world security.

“The international community must recommit its support and help the moderate opposition, which the National Coalition represents. We must restructure the Free Syrian Army (FSA),” he said. “The international community should channel its support through the National Coalition and the restructured FSA.”

US President Barack Obama is building a coalition of 40-50 mostly European and Arab allies to destroy IS with airstrikes on Iraq and Syria and by bolstering the forces of Kurds, Iraqis and moderate Syrian opposition groups.

US jets have been targeting IS positions in Iraq since last month. Coalition forces carried out a second of air raids in Syria on Wednesday.

Rudaw