Operation Featherweight: Month 2, Week 4, Day 2.

The US and the Gulf States shambolic bombing of Syria has continued into a seventh day. Perhaps indicating how badly the operation is going the US now no longer seems happy to provide details of how many strikes have taken place, where they've taken place and what has been targeted. Instead they are simply providing a total of the number of strikes that have taken place since the operation began eight weeks ago.

However from sources on the ground it appears that overnight unidentified targets were struck close to Al-Hasaka which is around 160km (96miles) north-east of Raqqa which is the self-declared capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Another main target appears to have been the Kuniko natural gas processing facility which is less then 100km (60miles) to the east of the city of Homs.

This is important because the city of Homs is very much under the control of the Syrian government. As such the attack seems to have been carried out in order to send the message that the coalition is getting ever closer to disregarding United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014) which gives it authority to attack ISIL and Al Nusra Front (ANF) and simply start launching attacks against the Syrian government in support of ISIL and ANF. The destruction of the Kuniko facility itself seems to be a clear effort to prevent the Syrian government from regaining control of the facility in order to starve Homs of fuel.

The night's bombing has also brought about the first big disaster of the campaign with the destruction of a grain storage facility in Manbij which is around 45km (27miles) north-east of the city of Aleppo. What appears to have happened is that coalition aircraft thought that they were attacking an "oil refinery" - seemingly the blanket term for any fuel storage facility - controlled by ANF. However what the coalition thought were fuel storage tanks were in fact grain silos meaning that the attack killed civilians rather then terrorists and destroyed a substantial part of the civilian food supply which is hardly likely to endear to the coalition to Syrian civilians.

This mistake was entirely a result of the coalition's failure to draw up a proper strategic plan to defeat ISIL. As they haven't carried out a proper assessment of how ISIL functions in order to find out where it is weak they also haven't carried out proper reconnaissance in order to find out what their proposed targets actually are before deciding to bomb them.

In fact the main priority for striking something, anything in Manbij seems to be that it is so close to Aleppo. The city of Aleppo is largely under the complete control of the Syrian government after they expelled ANF from most of the city back in August 2014. As such the coalition again seems to be indicating that it is on the verge of attacking Syrian forces rather then ISIL or ANF. No doubt they will attempt to claim that the first such attack was a 'mistake.'

The decision to start attacking ANF positions seems to be a foolish one in itself. Prior to the passing of resolution 2170 (2014) ANF and ISIL were very much sworn enemies spending much of their time attacking each other. Although the coalition is tasked with fighting both ISIL and ANF the rivalry between the two very much worked to the coalition's advantage because it meant that not only was the coalition working to weaken ISIL and ANF but ISIL and ANF were also working to weaken each other. Since the coalition has started attacking ANF targets - including the base of the Khorasan Group - ANF and ISIL have more or less stopped fighting each other and seem to be working to form an alliance to fight against the coalition. As a result the coalition has gone from fighting two small opponents to fighting one big enemy.

All of this bombing seems to have had absolutely no effect on stopping ISIL from advancing into fresh territory. Their two week advance on the strategically important town of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which is around 1km (0.6miles) from the border with Turkey has continued unabated. The city now seems to have been completely encircled with ISIL less then 5km (3 miles) from the city gates. This has triggered another humanitarian crisis as its Kurdish residents see their supplies of food and water dwindle. If the city does fall to ISIL not only does it spell near certain death for its residents it will also put ISIL in touching distance of Turkey making it much easier for them to smuggle oil out and weapons and fighters into Syria.

There have also been significant setbacks in Iraq. Two weeks ago the Iraqi army stretched themselves out in an effort to re-take both the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi which are 50km (30miles) and 100km (60miles) west of the capital Baghdad respectively. The expectation being that the US would be conducting air-strikes in support of that offensive allowing the Iraqis to secure a big victory by liberating the cities from ISIL. However since then the US seems to have completely forgotten about operations in Iraq in favour of large but largely ineffective strikes in Syria. As a result the offensive appears to have ground to a halt and ISIL have been able to take advantage of the Iraqi army's strained resources to make small gains close to the capital. In some places they are said to be just 10km (6miles) from Baghdad but don't seem to have the strength to actually mount an assault on the capital.

This of course all contributes to a growing sense - albeit entirely false - that ISIL have the upper hand and that there is nothing the coalition can do to stop them. That obviously hands the momentum to ISIL allowing them to grow in strength.

15:50 on 29/9/14 (UK date).