Operation Feathweight: Month 2, Week 4, Day 1.

Over the past 24 to 48 hours the US and the Gulf States seemingly random bombing of Iraq and Syria has continued albeit at a slightly reduced rate.

On Friday (26/9/14) through to Saturday (27/9/14) the US struck 7 targets in Iraq with 5 strikes taking place in the vicinity of Kurdish Peshmerga forces close to Kirkuk, 1 taking place in the vicinity of Iraqi forces close to Baghdad and 1 taking place close to Al Qaim which is right on the border with Syria around 200km (120m) south-east of the Syrian city of Dayr az Zawr.

The strikes close to Kirkuk destroyed 3 Humvees and one supply truck belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). They also damaged 2 ISIL armed "technical" trucks and damaged 1 ISIL Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP). The strike close to Baghdad destroyed an ISIL bunker, guard post and a technical. The strike close to Al Qaim destroyed 4 technicals, a checkpoint and what is being termed a "command and control node" which presumably means some type of radio transmitter.

Despite the majority of these strikes taking place close to Kurdish Peshmerga forces who are operating on the ground close to Kirkuk and Iraqi forces who are operating on the ground close to Baghdad there seems to have been absolutely no attempt to co-ordinate these air-strikes with those ground forces in order to allow those ground forces to take advantage of the strikes to liberate territory from ISIL. In fact the Peshmerga have been complaining that they are being given so little information about when and where air-strikes are going to take place that there is a constant risk of them being caught up in so-called friendly fire.

Within Syria the US alongside Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have carried out an undisclosed number of air-strikes against undisclosed targets close to the Kurdish city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which is around 1km (0.6miles) from the border with Turkey. The secrecy around this strikes may be intended to give the impression that they have been carried out to stop ISIL's advance into Kurdish territory. However it appears that rather then being attempts to attack ISIL forces these strikes have instead been targeting buildings which the US has been happy to let people believe are ISIL oil refineries. According to people on the ground though these buildings are actually just fuel stores which are used by civilians living in the local area - gas stations essentially.

As there seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether these fuel stores are even under ISIL control these strikes again raise the problems I highlighted on Thursday (25/9/14). As there has been no attempt to engage ISIL forces with these strikes it almost goes without saying that there has been absolutely no attempt to co-ordinate the air-strikes with ground forces operating in the area.

The most peculiar of the weekend's strikes though took place in Syria's Homs province east of the city of Palmyra. The first thing that is strikingly odd about these strikes is that ISIL are almost exclusively located north of the Euphrates River. These strikes have taken place some 130km (78miles) south of Raqqa and 150km (90miles) south-west of Dayr az Zawr which are both on the river putting the strikes well outside of ISIL controlled territory. The other very strange thing about these strikes is that it is far from clear who controls that area because largely being desert there isn't actually much there to control.

The main purpose of the strikes therefore seems to be a hope that people would mistake Homs Province with Homs City which is the provincial capital but is around 160km (96miles) to the west. Homs City is very firmly under the control of the Syrian government so along with the announcement that camps belonging to "other terrorist groups" who aren't covered by United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2170 (2014) these strikes seem to have been the Saudis sending the very clear message that they intend to do whatever they like in Syria including bombing government forces

Despite these fresh air-strikes and Saudi Arabia's pretty vocal threats there still doesn't seem to be any indication that any of these bombings are going to be brought together in a coherent strategy to defeat ISIL anytime soon. Of the 12 nations who have contributed military assets to the coalition 5 of them have yet to conduct any air-strikes whatsoever for the simple reason that they still don't have an airbase to operate from. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has indicated that he is very keen to send Turkish ground forces into northern Syria. However as he is still refusing to allow the coalition to use Incirlik airbase which was used as the base for "Operation Provide Comfort" (1991-1996) and "Operation Northern Watch" (1997-2003) I suspect that this is simply Erdogan looking for an excuse to use Turkish troops to further occupy Kurdish territory.

The coalition is still lacking a central command cell and a supreme commander of forces. If such as structure were to be established the commanders first task would be to take US President Obama's super vague objective of "degrading and ultimately destroying ISIL" and turning it into a series of concrete military objectives.

The first of these would likely be to prevent ISIL from advancing further into fresh territory. This would be achieved by flying armed patrols along the borders of the territory ISIL currently controls. If the aircrews flying those missions were to identify any offensive ISIL targets - e.g a firing position - they would then immediately engage that target in an attempt to destroy it. The next objective would likely be to force ISIL out of the territory they currently occupy. This would be achieved firstly by weakening ISIL's forward positions by conducting strategic bombings raids against the networks directly supplying those forward positions and secondly by providing close air-support to ground forces in order to punch a hole in that forward line allowing the ground forces to move in and clear the area. While this is taking place the coalition is also likely to carry out strategic bombing of ISIL's rear echelon positions to weaken the organisation overall.

Unless the coalition does put together a strategic plan to defeat ISIL I am going to have to start questioning whether this ad-hoc bombing is doing more harm then good by increasing the threat that ISIL pose to the nations in the coalition. By attacking ISIL the coalition is very obviously provoking the organisation and its supporters to attack members of the coalition in retaliation. By failing to show that the coalition is capable of quickly defeating ISIL it is further encouraging ISIL to stand and make a fight of it by giving them the impression that they can win. So unless a plan comes together soon I am beginning to wonder if I can recommend that the US Congress supports this operation in its current form.

Following the UK Parliament giving them permission to join the coalition on Friday (26/9/14) the UK's Royal Air Force (RAF) have flown several armed patrols consisting of 2 Tornado GR4's operating in pairs over northern Iraq much as they did during Operations Provide Comfort and Northern Watch. However the RAF have yet to identify any ground targets to strike. Although I'm sure they're far to well disciplined to say it outright this strikes me as the RAF contributing to the coalition by pointing out that they are there to successfully achieve a series of military objectives.

They are not there to randomly bomb things in the hope that the electorate will get off their backs.  

15:30 on 28/9/14 (UK date).