Operation Featherweight: Week 4, Day 6.

On Monday (1/9/14) the US Navy carried out a single air-strike close to the Mosul Dam. Although it has not been confirmed whether the F-18 jet dropped one or two bombs this single air-strike did succeed in destroying or severely damaging 16 armed "Technical" trucks belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). As such this was the most destructive strike that the US has carried out in this operation doing more damage then 15 air-strikes that were carried out over several days last week. This of course serves to highlight just how ineffective the US' policy of carrying out pinprick strikes against individual targets has been.

The White House however seems to have been more interested in carrying out air-strikes in Somalia. On Monday night/Tuesday (2/9/14) morning they carried out strikes against senior figures in al-Shabaab including Ahmed Abdi Godane who were meeting at a camp in south-central Somalia. Godane and other senior al-Shabaab figures have been long standing targets of the US and the US even launched a failed special forces raid against them in October 2013. As such I think that intelligence showed that the group were meeting up presenting an opportunity to kill them so that opportunity was taken. It does though raise the question of why the US is making the targeting of al-Shabaab a priority because it is certainly a group that has evolved over the years in direct response to foreign military action.

When they began to emerge in the early 2000's al-Shabaab were simply an attempt to restore order to Somalia which has lacked a functioning government since 1991. Literally meaning "The Youth" al-Shabaab gathered together all the heavily armed young men who were running around Somalia committing crime and causing trouble. Al-Shabaab were under the supervision of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) that was a sort of council of elders who were trying to establish some sort of order using a relatively moderate interpretation of Sharia law. Unfortunately though the UIC had the word "Islamic" in their title so the US of President George W Bush carried out a special forces and bombing campaign to wipe them out in the summer of 2006.

Without the supervision of the UIC al-Shabaab began to ally themselves with Al-Qaeda. This along with the 2011 East African drought provided an excuse for western nations to parachute in a pretty nasty unelected puppet government for Somalia to fight al-Shabaab with the backing of regional allies such as Uganda and Kenya. This led to al-Shabaab becoming increasingly focused on terrorist activities including the 2013 attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya. 

Due to the unchecked rise of ISIL Al-Qaeda are now considered the moderates when it comes to Islamic terrorism meaning that they are loosing support internationally to ISIL. So if the US killing al-Shabaab's leaders leads to them being replaced by people who take the group closer to ISIL it would be considered a failure for the US, Somalia and the region in general.

On the ground in Iraq everything has been very much focused on consolidating the gains made by the offencive to liberate Amerli over the weekend. So for example the first UN aid convoys have been able to enter the town today and the Iraqi military backed by the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Shia militias have been clearing the surrounding villages and removing ISIL booby traps.

The loss of their positions around Amerli and around the Ain Zalah oil fields have clearly hit ISIL hard so on Tuesday they executed Steven Sotloff a US journalist who was being held hostage by the group and whose life was specifically threatened in the video in which fellow hostage and US journalist James Foley was beheaded. Sotloff's execution was carried out in almost identical fashion with a British ISIL member who has become known as "Jihadi John" threatening the US over the air-strikes it has carried out before beheading Sotloff as punishment for those strikes. He then threatens that David Haines a British journalist being held hostage will be executed unless the air-strikes cease. This video was released to the public via the Internet meaning that while I don't have any interest in seeing someone being beheaded the efforts to cover it up including by withholding the name of the UK journalist seem rather pointless.

The very public nature of Sotloff's execution also meant that US President Obama did not have the option of not responding to it meaning that his only option was to retaliate militarily against ISIL. So when 20 helicopters were spotted moving close to the Turkey/Syria border in the hours after the release of the video everyone assumed that it was the US launching a special forces operation to rescue the remaining hostages or simply to strike hard against ISIL. As it turns out the helicopters were actually Turkish helicopters on a routine flight but overnight the US certainly seemed happy to fuel the rumours of a possible operation.

Obama's actual response though was to merely make a statement offering his condolences to Sotloff's friends and family before claiming that the US will not be intimidated by such actions and that its resolve to fight ISIL will only be strengthened. However Obama really does need to back those words with strong action because it is his hesitancy to act against ISIL that is leading them to believe that he is being intimidated by their actions and this tactic of taking and threatening to kill hostages could well be effective in discouraging him from taking action against them.

Curiously though Obama has authorised the deployment of a further 350 troops to Iraq bringing the total on the ground to well above 1000 and possibly as high as 1600. This makes sense because it immediately proves that Obama was lying when he said that there would be no US boots on the ground in Iraq. It also shows that he is perfectly happy to put more US lives in danger but is simply too afraid to take action to protect those US lives.

15:10 on 3/9/14 (UK date).

Edited at around 10:20 on 4/9/14 (UK date) to add;

Over the weekend US air-strikes contributed to ISIL  losing the territory they held around the town of Amerli. On Monday the US carried out its single most destructive air-strike against ISIL. On Tuesday ISIL executed American hostage Steven Sotloff in response to the air-strikes. Since then the US has not carried out a single air-strike against ISIL.

As a result it is very easy to imagine that ISIL have concluded that killing hostages is an effective way to protect themselves from US air-strikes.