Operation Featherweight: Month 2, Week 2, Day 5.

Following his trip to Saudi Arabia US Secretary of State John Kerry travelled on Monday (15/9/14) to Paris, France for a two day summit on the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). This summit brought together members of the Arab League and members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) alongside major World powers such as Russia, China and Japan who are not members of either body. At the meeting all parties reaffirmed the commitments they'd already made against ISIL and signed up to a further agreement which can be read here; http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files/iraq-304/events-2526/article/international-conference-on-peace

That agreement reaffirmed their commitment to United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014) against ISIL while underlining the urgent need to take military action against ISIL positions in Iraq. The summit also brings the number of nations in the coalition against ISIL to 40.

Of those nations several have also begun to move military assets into position to take action in Iraq. Australia is in the process to moving 8 F/A18 attack aircraft, a E-7A surveillance aircraft and a KC-30A tanker aircraft along with around 600 support troops to an airbase in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Although they are being typically vague about the exact type of aircraft being used France started making surveillance flights over Iraq on Monday. These add to the RC-135 and Tornado GR4 aircraft that the UK has been flying over Iraq for a number of weeks. Essentially all these allied nations are waiting for is for the US to designate an airbase to be used as a centre for operations and draw up an operational plan so they can join in with combat operations against ISIL.

With the Paris Summit ending on Tuesday (16/9/14) and diplomacy taking something of a back seat the forces on the ground in Iraq were finally able to get on with some fighting. On Tuesday itself the Kurdish Peshmerga launched an operation that successfully cleared ISIL forces from the mainly Christian villages of Hassan al-Sham, Syudan, Bahra and Jisr al-Khadhr which lie between Arbil and the Great Zab River. At dawn on Wednesday (17/9/14) the Peshmerga launched another offensive to liberate the villages between the Great Zab River and ISIL's stronghold of Mosul. What made this operation so impressive was that in an effort to defend Mosul ISIL had destroyed the only bridge over the river at the town of Kalak. As a result the Peshmerga were forced to march some 16km (9.6miles) north before marching 12km (7.2miles) west followed by a further 6km (3.5miles) south before even joining the battle. Despite effectively having to run a marathon before they even arrived the Peshmerga rapidly won that battle and by the end of the day were in control of the towns of Bartella, Karemlesh and Bakhdida leaving them right on the outskirts of Mosul itself.

The Iraqi army also sprang into action on Wednesday launching a massive offensive to liberate the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah which are 100km (60miles) and 50km (30miles) west of the capital Baghdad respectively. The Iraqi army is also trying to force ISIL from the city of Haditha which is 115km (69miles) south west of Tikrit and largely still under the control of the Iraqi army. Obviously an offensive of this size is going to take a few days to complete and operations in Fallujah still seem to be at the softening up phase with Iraqi air-strikes and shelling taking place. It seems to be a similar story in Ramadi with Iraq's 8th Army division attacking ISIL positions with artillery, mortar and rocket fire. However it appears that ISIL have started to crumble in Ramadi with them blowing up Albu Faraj bridge over the Euphrates river to the north of the city in an effort to slow the Iraqi advance and cover their retreat.

Despite their Rules of Engagement (RoE) being changed to allow them to act in support of these ground advances the actual level of support being provided by the US continues to hover somewhere between little and none. On Monday the US carried out its first air-strike under the new RoE against an ISIL fighting position/trench complex in Sadr al-Yusufiya which is just 25km (15miles) south-west of Baghdad. However with the US Embassy and its compliment of over 1000 US citizens and countless other international contractors located in Baghdad this air-strike would have been well covered by the old RoE that allowed for the protection of US citizens.

On Sunday the US carried out an air-strike which destroyed a convoy of six ISIL vehicles in Sinjar. On Monday and Tuesday things intensified slightly with the US carrying out 5 air-strikes. Two of these took place to the north-west of Arbil and destroyed an armed "Technical" truck and an ISIL fighting position. The further three strikes occurred south-west of Baghdad and damaged an ISILsupply truck and destroyed an ISIL anti-aircraft gun, a small ISIL infantry unit and two small boats that may have been re-supplying ISIL forces in Fallujah. There was also a slight intensification on Tuesday and Wednesday with 7 US strikes. Two of these took destroyed two technicals close of Arbil, one destroyed a technical north-west of the Haditha dam and four destroyed several ISIL infantry units and a small boat on the Euphrates all just south-west of Baghdad. These last four strikes in particular were very clearly carried out in support of the Iraqi army's offensives against Ramadi and Fallujah however compared with the intensity of strikes the Iraqis themselves are carrying out they are nominal at best.

On the political front on Wednesday the US House of Representatives narrowly supported US President Obama's plan to train and equip 'moderate' insurgents in Syria by 273 votes to 156. Next the bill goes to the Democrat controlled Senate where it is likely to gain even stronger support. I personally consider this to be very much a step in the wrong direction. With these 'moderates' being selected by and trained in Saudi Arabia the worst case scenario is that they either directly join forces with ISIL or simply replace them. The best case scenario is that this support goes only to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) who hold no significant territory in Syria and continue to be ousted from their little pockets on the outskirts of Homs and Damascus. If increased US support can somehow reverse the FSA's fortunes they will still have to travel across most of Syria defeating the Syrian military, the Islamic Front (IF) and Al-Nusra Front (ANF) before even coming in contact with ISIL. As a result they are likely to have no impact whatsoever against ISIL and the time it takes for Obama to realise that would be better spent aiding the Kurdish Peshmerga to defeat ISIL first in Iraq then in Syria.

The other worrying development has been reports that Obama intends to keep signing off on each air-strike in Iraq individually. This has the immediate effect of preventing any of the other 39 nations in the coalition from conducting air-strikes themselves. Also through his role in the initial withdrawal from Iraq, the proposed withdrawal from Afghanistan, the intervention in Libya, the intervention in Syria, the failure to intervene in Mali, the continuing delays in intervening in Iraq and his reaction to the recent Israel/Gaza war it has become increasingly apparent that Obama really does not understand military matters.

Further evidence of this was provided on Tuesday through Obama's decision to send nearly twice as many US servicemen into danger to fight the Ebola virus in west-Africa then he is sending to fight ISIL in Iraq. I think on one level this is the US trying to find a metaphor to have coded discussions about ISIL that it can control which is in itself risky. Also Ebola is most certainly the smaller threat having only affected 12,000 people compared to the 60,000 people who were trapped on Mount Sinjar and can be stopped through simple hygiene methods such as hand washing and not licking the dead.

It is most certainly though not a problem that can be solved through bullets air-strikes indicating that Obama does not understand that the military is not a humanitarian organisation and combat operations need to be aggressive and they need to be violent.

15:55 on 18/9/14 (UK date).