On Wednesday (29/1/014) there was a dramatic increase in the fighting in the strategically important city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which sits just 1km (0.6 miles) from Syria's border with Turkey. In the eastern portion of the city the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) significantly intensified their attacks that have been happening almost continuously over the past two weeks. In the south of the city ISIL launched a fresh offensive that was repelled by Kobane's defenders after many hours of fighting. In both of these areas some 54 ISIL fighters were confirmed killed and 16 members of the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) also lost their lives.
The main and probably only reason for these fresh ISIL offensives which included a massive and sustained shelling of the northern border-crossing was the imminent arrival of two artillery platoons from the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga along with weapons and equipment sent to relieve Kobane. The 150 troops that will actually be joining the YPG in Kobane arrived in the Turkish border city of Sucac just before dawn on Wednesday having flown in from Arbil, Iraq. Sucac and Kobane actually used to be two halves of the same city until the fall of the Turkish-Ottoman Empire in 1922 when the railway line that run through the city centre was used as the new border between Turkey and Syria. The name "Kobane" actually derives from the German "Bahn" meaning "train" or "track." Therefore you wouldn't have thought it would have taken long for the Peshmerga to travel from Sucac to Kobane.
The problem was that Peshmergas supply convoy carrying all their weapons and equipment was travelling by road and kept getting delayed. In part this was because everywhere the convoy went it was treated as liberating heroes and mobbed by crowds. However the much larger problem was that ever since entering Turkey on Tuesday (28/10/14) evening the convoy has been under a Turkish military escort. That escort has been able to play a large role in dictating the pace of the convoy.
Fortunately the Peshmerga convoy did finally arrive in very early hours of this morning and an advance party of around 75 Peshmergas have crossed into Kobane. They are currently assessing the best way to bring the remaining fighters and equipment into Kobane. After all it would be a huge waste of effort if those weapons and fighters were destroyed or captured at this final hurdle.
The arrival of the Peshmerga was proceeded on Wednesday morning by the arrival of a small detachment of the Free Syria Army (FSA). Their commander claims that some 200 fighters have entered Kobane but no-one has actually seen any more then 50 equipped with a small amount of medium weapons. The arrival of the FSA was much less welcome then the arrival of the Peshmerga not least because no-one actually invited them, they just turned up.
The main problem with the FSA is that it is not clear what role they intend to play. Although the Peshmerga will remain independent of the YPG they have agreed to operate under the command of the YPG. The FSA however have not reached a similar agreement suggesting that they intend to do their own thing regardless of what the main plan is. The other main problem is that in the past units of the FSA have co-operated closely with ISIL and commanders of other FSA units have been quite open about their desire to violently rid Kobane of Kurds so it will live up to its other name "Ayn al-Arab."
Finally the FSA seem to have been sent to Kobane at the insistence of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who seems to be co-operating closely with ISIL to have the Kurds exterminated. Initially Erdogan wanted 1,300 FSA fighters sent to Kobane before he would entertain allowing 150 Peshmerga in. Although everyone who is in Kobane that can hold a rifle is currently doing so there are only around 2,000 official members of the YPG there. Therefore it is quite easy to view Erdogan's demand as a quite clear and clearly illegal attempt to change the ethnic make-up of Kobane. Fortunately the arrival of just 50 FSA fighters is not likely to have much effect particularly if they are prepared to operate under the command of the YPG.
In terms of what and how many weapons the Peshmerga have brought with them I don't have any specific information and I'm not particularly sure I want to find out about it on the Internet. However it is quite clear that the Peshmerga are very focused on bringing in heavy and medium weapons such as mortars, anti-tank guns and anti-tank missiles. These will obviously allow the YPG to better take on ISIL tanks, truck bombs (VBIED's) and machine gun/sniper positions within Kobane without having to rely on air-strikes from the US-led coalition. Air-strikes will though still be needed to attack ISIL artillery and other positions outside of the city.
I should point out though that while it will provide much needed relief and help strengthen Kobane's defences the arrival of the Peshmerga does not suddenly mean that ISIL have been defeated and the city is secure. Although they are not making huge gains all these little offensives that ISIL have been mounting have succeeded in securing a street here and a building there. All these little gains have been adding up meaning that ISIL have gone from controlling only around 20% of the city to controlling between 30-40% of the city. As a result the first priority is to stop ISIL from advancing further into Kobane. Once this has been achieved the YPG can start trying to force ISIL out of the city. If they can achieve that then the YPG starting think about pushing ISIL back from Kobane in order to establish a defensive perimeter around it. In order to do this they will need constant re-supply either by air or ideally via road from Turkey. After all guns are only useful if you've got bullets to fire from them.
On the issue of re-supply the US did manage to carry out an air-drop on Monday (27/10/14) to Iraqi forces who have been holding out against ISIL forces in Iraq's Anbar province. The Iraqis obviously requested this air-drop because their troops needed re-supply. However the US only seemed happy to carry out because the Iraqi forces are located near Al-Asad airbase. As such this seems to have been done in order to indulge Turkish President Erdogan's claim that Kobane cannot be supplied because the coalition should be focused on fighting the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad.
This deeply worrying for a number of reasons. Firstly it shows that US President Obama has yet to accept that the coalition is not there to fight the Syrian government which would be a gross violation of international law. Instead the coalition is there purely to defeat ISIL. Once that has been achieved what happens next isn't really the coalition's problem. Mainly though it is worrying because it shows that Obama still has not realised that he is conducting a war rather then participating in a High School debating competition.
18:05 on 30/10/14 (UK date).
Thursday, 30 October 2014
Tuesday, 28 October 2014
And In Other News
For most of the summer drug dealers from the local firm have been staking out the corner of my street. Despite this clear intimidation a few weeks ago a neighbour noticed as Somali gentleman with a pram going around opening the porch doors of people's houses. If he found deliveries from an online retailer such as "Amazon" he would proceed to steal them.
Being an community minded fellow this neighbour called the police before getting into his car to discreetly follow this Somalian as he went on his rounds. The police eventually responded to the neighbour as he was sitting outside the old Reliance Security building - it now houses asylum seekers - which he'd watched the thief enter as if returning home. Unfortunately the local, Croydon, police found themselves unable to establish probable cause to enter said building and conduct a search which would have led to an arrest. However the neighbour was able to suggest that the police conduct the occasional drive-by patrol to deter the drug dealers. Miraculously the drug dealers somehow got the message that they were not welcome and vacated without the police having to officially do a thing.
Also I recently watched an Israeli documentary feature entitled "The Gatekeepers." Being a series of interviews with former heads of Shin Bet - Israel's internal security service - it is most certainly not a comedy. I did though find the sequence in which one interviewee described his collegue beating a terror suspect to death with a rock to be particularly 'amusing.' Obviously if I get the time I will need to give this film a further watch before giving it my endorsement or a full review. After all even my father was shocked to learn that the Jewish Underground were freed from prison.
Anyway I believe the pressure is now on Hamas to release a similar film examining their methods.
21:45 on 28/10/14 (UK date).
Being an community minded fellow this neighbour called the police before getting into his car to discreetly follow this Somalian as he went on his rounds. The police eventually responded to the neighbour as he was sitting outside the old Reliance Security building - it now houses asylum seekers - which he'd watched the thief enter as if returning home. Unfortunately the local, Croydon, police found themselves unable to establish probable cause to enter said building and conduct a search which would have led to an arrest. However the neighbour was able to suggest that the police conduct the occasional drive-by patrol to deter the drug dealers. Miraculously the drug dealers somehow got the message that they were not welcome and vacated without the police having to officially do a thing.
Also I recently watched an Israeli documentary feature entitled "The Gatekeepers." Being a series of interviews with former heads of Shin Bet - Israel's internal security service - it is most certainly not a comedy. I did though find the sequence in which one interviewee described his collegue beating a terror suspect to death with a rock to be particularly 'amusing.' Obviously if I get the time I will need to give this film a further watch before giving it my endorsement or a full review. After all even my father was shocked to learn that the Jewish Underground were freed from prison.
Anyway I believe the pressure is now on Hamas to release a similar film examining their methods.
21:45 on 28/10/14 (UK date).
Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 3, Day 7.
Overnight fighting has continued between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) in the east of the strategically important city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which sits just 1km (0.6miles) from Syria's border with Turkey.
Despite 34 ISIL fighters being confirmed killed this seems to have been relatively light fighting rather then being a full on assault. This is a classic war of attrition tactic. Essentially ISIL know that their supply lines are stronger then the YPG's so they mount these constant harassment attacks in order to force the YPG to use up their supplies of ammunition and fighters in what is basically a fight over nothing.
Fortunately though it appears that the YPG's supplies could soon be boosted. As I write two artillery platoons belonging to the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga have left their base in Arbil, northern Iraq on route to Turkey. From there they hope to be allowed to travel through Turkey into Kobane although having heard so many times that Turkey has given its permission for this to happen only to change its mind I for one will find it hard to believe that it's really happening until I see pictures of the Peshmerga actually arriving in Kobane. Of course if Turkey do allow the Peshmerga to cross into Turkey then this type of supply convoy will have to become a regular occurrence. After all soldiers without supply lines are often a liability rather than an asset.
During last night's fighting ISIL's propaganda department released a video showing British hostage John Cantlie 'reporting' for ISIL from inside Kobane. Parts of this video do appear to have been shot just outside the eastern outskirts of Kobane on Tuesday (21/10/14) or Wednesday (22/10/14) of last week. However the script that Cantlie was reading from hardly gave an accurate picture of the situation in Kobane claiming that ISIL had completely over-run the city and were in the final stages of a mopping up operation. In reality at the time it was shot ISIL were only in control of around 20% of Kobane in several pockets around the northern border crossing, the governance district and the south-east entrance. The fact that ISIL are desperate to claim victory in Kobane along with the vast number of troops led by some of their top commanders that have been sent to seize Kobane shows just how important it is to them. In fact I would go so far as to suggest that ISIL could not withstand defeat at Kobane and they would quickly start to collapse in on themselves.
What I also found interesting about the video is that it refers to Kobane being defended by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rather then the YPG and seems to celebrate the fact that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has drawn the anger of US Secretary of State John Kerry by blocking the fight against ISIL. This strikes me as a further indication that Erdogan and ISIL are close allies who are pursing the same aims.
A possible reason why this week old video was released yesterday as opposed to on Sunday (26/10/14) or today is that yesterday the US convened a meeting of the Gulf Co-Operation Council (GCC), - Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc - Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, France and the UK in Kuwait to tackle ISIL propaganda. Putting aside the fact that ISIL were apparently able to spend more then a week preparing for this meeting it strikes me as being at best an expensive waste of time and at worst an effort to actively assist ISIL.
Although the John Cantlie videos are clearly the jewel in the crown of ISIL's propaganda efforts the remaining 99% of it is largely awful. The religious and theological justifications for ISIL's actions are so thin I can quite easily discredit them and I am far from an Islamic scholar. Similarly ISIL's claims of battlefield successes are equally easily discredited and often completely detached from reality. A prime example came on October 13th (13/10/14) when I writing a post about how the YPG had succeeded in repelling a very large ISIL assault. The next day the YPG broke out of Kobane and re-captured Tall Shair hill from ISIL. However in the middle of me writing that post an ISIL spokesman popped up to not only claim that ISIL's assault had been successful but they were in control of the entire city. That of course does beg the question of what has been going on for the last 15 days.
Therefore the real success that ISIL have had in getting their message out has not come from their own efforts but from the extensive support they've been given by professional news organisations such as the US news networks who still insist on incorrectly referring to them as "ISIS," Qatar's Al Jazeera, the UK's BBC and in particular the UK's Channel 4 News. In the west these organisations have worked hard to legitimise ISIL by changing the acronym by which their known in order to disguise their true purpose and by portraying them as being in some humanitarian fight against the Syrian government. Gulf based news organisations have been even more blatant quite happily portraying ISIL as good Sunni Muslims engaged in a holy war against the Shia infidel even though they actually seemed to be engaged in the Gulf Monarchs distinctly unholy war against democracy and human rights.
As such rather then setting up a task force to tackle ISIL propaganda online which seems like a way to trick money out of the US and get the US to highlight the problems with ISIL propaganda so the Gulf nations can help them improve it seems much more sensible to simply reduce the legitimisation of ISIL in the mainstream media. This should be particularly easy for Qatar - after all their King (Emir) Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is the cousin of Hamad bin Thamer bin Mohammed Al Thani who runs the Al Jazeera new network.
As for the US' utterly spineless decision to give Turkey a USD10 million to help meet the cost of Kurdish refugees from Syria whilst Turkey continues to refuse to allow the use of United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik words truly fail me.
17:25 on 28/10/14 (UK date).
Despite 34 ISIL fighters being confirmed killed this seems to have been relatively light fighting rather then being a full on assault. This is a classic war of attrition tactic. Essentially ISIL know that their supply lines are stronger then the YPG's so they mount these constant harassment attacks in order to force the YPG to use up their supplies of ammunition and fighters in what is basically a fight over nothing.
Fortunately though it appears that the YPG's supplies could soon be boosted. As I write two artillery platoons belonging to the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga have left their base in Arbil, northern Iraq on route to Turkey. From there they hope to be allowed to travel through Turkey into Kobane although having heard so many times that Turkey has given its permission for this to happen only to change its mind I for one will find it hard to believe that it's really happening until I see pictures of the Peshmerga actually arriving in Kobane. Of course if Turkey do allow the Peshmerga to cross into Turkey then this type of supply convoy will have to become a regular occurrence. After all soldiers without supply lines are often a liability rather than an asset.
During last night's fighting ISIL's propaganda department released a video showing British hostage John Cantlie 'reporting' for ISIL from inside Kobane. Parts of this video do appear to have been shot just outside the eastern outskirts of Kobane on Tuesday (21/10/14) or Wednesday (22/10/14) of last week. However the script that Cantlie was reading from hardly gave an accurate picture of the situation in Kobane claiming that ISIL had completely over-run the city and were in the final stages of a mopping up operation. In reality at the time it was shot ISIL were only in control of around 20% of Kobane in several pockets around the northern border crossing, the governance district and the south-east entrance. The fact that ISIL are desperate to claim victory in Kobane along with the vast number of troops led by some of their top commanders that have been sent to seize Kobane shows just how important it is to them. In fact I would go so far as to suggest that ISIL could not withstand defeat at Kobane and they would quickly start to collapse in on themselves.
What I also found interesting about the video is that it refers to Kobane being defended by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rather then the YPG and seems to celebrate the fact that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has drawn the anger of US Secretary of State John Kerry by blocking the fight against ISIL. This strikes me as a further indication that Erdogan and ISIL are close allies who are pursing the same aims.
A possible reason why this week old video was released yesterday as opposed to on Sunday (26/10/14) or today is that yesterday the US convened a meeting of the Gulf Co-Operation Council (GCC), - Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc - Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, France and the UK in Kuwait to tackle ISIL propaganda. Putting aside the fact that ISIL were apparently able to spend more then a week preparing for this meeting it strikes me as being at best an expensive waste of time and at worst an effort to actively assist ISIL.
Although the John Cantlie videos are clearly the jewel in the crown of ISIL's propaganda efforts the remaining 99% of it is largely awful. The religious and theological justifications for ISIL's actions are so thin I can quite easily discredit them and I am far from an Islamic scholar. Similarly ISIL's claims of battlefield successes are equally easily discredited and often completely detached from reality. A prime example came on October 13th (13/10/14) when I writing a post about how the YPG had succeeded in repelling a very large ISIL assault. The next day the YPG broke out of Kobane and re-captured Tall Shair hill from ISIL. However in the middle of me writing that post an ISIL spokesman popped up to not only claim that ISIL's assault had been successful but they were in control of the entire city. That of course does beg the question of what has been going on for the last 15 days.
Therefore the real success that ISIL have had in getting their message out has not come from their own efforts but from the extensive support they've been given by professional news organisations such as the US news networks who still insist on incorrectly referring to them as "ISIS," Qatar's Al Jazeera, the UK's BBC and in particular the UK's Channel 4 News. In the west these organisations have worked hard to legitimise ISIL by changing the acronym by which their known in order to disguise their true purpose and by portraying them as being in some humanitarian fight against the Syrian government. Gulf based news organisations have been even more blatant quite happily portraying ISIL as good Sunni Muslims engaged in a holy war against the Shia infidel even though they actually seemed to be engaged in the Gulf Monarchs distinctly unholy war against democracy and human rights.
As such rather then setting up a task force to tackle ISIL propaganda online which seems like a way to trick money out of the US and get the US to highlight the problems with ISIL propaganda so the Gulf nations can help them improve it seems much more sensible to simply reduce the legitimisation of ISIL in the mainstream media. This should be particularly easy for Qatar - after all their King (Emir) Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is the cousin of Hamad bin Thamer bin Mohammed Al Thani who runs the Al Jazeera new network.
As for the US' utterly spineless decision to give Turkey a USD10 million to help meet the cost of Kurdish refugees from Syria whilst Turkey continues to refuse to allow the use of United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik words truly fail me.
17:25 on 28/10/14 (UK date).
Monday, 27 October 2014
Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 3, Day 6.
Now in it's 43rd day the battle for Kobane/Ayn al-Arab has entered yet another attrition phase. That is to say with Saturday's (25/10/14) big assault by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) being repelled we are now waiting to see if, and as is more likely when, ISIL will bring in fresh reinforcements in order to launch yet another assault. This temporary reduction in the tempo of fighting does though give me an opportunity to address one of the issues that has been developing throughout the battle.
Despite ISIL fighter's claim that it is their religious duty to give their lives to the cause the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have been managing to capture increasing numbers of them alive. This obviously poses the question of what to do with ISIL fighters who have surrendered. Therefore I have to say that there are actually two very strong legal arguments that they can just be executed.
The first of these is the principle of " Quod Est Necessarium Est Licitum" or "That which is necessary is lawful." Basically Kobane is currently a very active combat zone meaning that the YPG do not have the capacity to hold trials or to imprison people long term. As Kobane is currently cut off from the outside world at Turkey's insistence the YPG also don't have the option of sending people to a quieter area where they can be tried and imprisoned. However if the YPG were to release any ISIL fighters that they can't try or imprison they would simply return to fighting for ISIL and therefore continue to threaten the YPG. As such even if they have got their hands up and are waving the white flag they are still considered to be combatants and can be killed like any other combatant.
Secondly the basis for any legal protection for combatants or prisoners of war is the Geneva Conventions specifically the 4th Article of the 3rd Geneva Convention. That only affords Prisoner of War status to members of militia's or volunteer corps who "That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war" (GCIII, A4,2[d]). There is probably not a single aspect of ISIL's conduct which is in accordance to the laws and customs of war and their use of chemical weapons, cruel and inhuman punishments and the wholesale slaughter of civilians most certainly count amongst the most serious violations. Therefore through their own conduct ISIL are not considered worthy of any legal protection including the protection against being killed.
That said though just because the YPG are legally allowed to execute members of ISIL does not necessarily mean they should. After all the mere fact that we are having this discussion helps demonstrate that morally and ethically the YPG are far superior to ISIL. However Kobane is an extremely dire situation so if it becomes a choice between surviving and dying the YPG will have to chose to survive.
What is making the situation in Kobane even more dire is that last Monday (20/10/14) the YPG were air-dropped a week's worth of supplies. Since then a week has passed and another big assault has been repelled yet there has been no air-drop of fresh supplies today which is a guaranteed way to lose a war of attrition.
15:40 on 27/10/14 (UK date).
Despite ISIL fighter's claim that it is their religious duty to give their lives to the cause the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have been managing to capture increasing numbers of them alive. This obviously poses the question of what to do with ISIL fighters who have surrendered. Therefore I have to say that there are actually two very strong legal arguments that they can just be executed.
The first of these is the principle of " Quod Est Necessarium Est Licitum" or "That which is necessary is lawful." Basically Kobane is currently a very active combat zone meaning that the YPG do not have the capacity to hold trials or to imprison people long term. As Kobane is currently cut off from the outside world at Turkey's insistence the YPG also don't have the option of sending people to a quieter area where they can be tried and imprisoned. However if the YPG were to release any ISIL fighters that they can't try or imprison they would simply return to fighting for ISIL and therefore continue to threaten the YPG. As such even if they have got their hands up and are waving the white flag they are still considered to be combatants and can be killed like any other combatant.
Secondly the basis for any legal protection for combatants or prisoners of war is the Geneva Conventions specifically the 4th Article of the 3rd Geneva Convention. That only affords Prisoner of War status to members of militia's or volunteer corps who "That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war" (GCIII, A4,2[d]). There is probably not a single aspect of ISIL's conduct which is in accordance to the laws and customs of war and their use of chemical weapons, cruel and inhuman punishments and the wholesale slaughter of civilians most certainly count amongst the most serious violations. Therefore through their own conduct ISIL are not considered worthy of any legal protection including the protection against being killed.
That said though just because the YPG are legally allowed to execute members of ISIL does not necessarily mean they should. After all the mere fact that we are having this discussion helps demonstrate that morally and ethically the YPG are far superior to ISIL. However Kobane is an extremely dire situation so if it becomes a choice between surviving and dying the YPG will have to chose to survive.
What is making the situation in Kobane even more dire is that last Monday (20/10/14) the YPG were air-dropped a week's worth of supplies. Since then a week has passed and another big assault has been repelled yet there has been no air-drop of fresh supplies today which is a guaranteed way to lose a war of attrition.
15:40 on 27/10/14 (UK date).
Sunday, 26 October 2014
Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 3, Day 5.
Over the past two days Kobane/Ayn al-Arab has seen some of the fiercest fighting since the battle for control of the strategically important city began. Having been steadily building up reinforcements around the city over the past week the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) boosted their numbers even further on Saturday (25/10/14) with fighters brought in from Aleppo. On Saturday night those strengthened ISIL forces launched another attack from the south and the east in an attempt to seize Kobane's northern border crossing. Fortunately it appears that fresh assault has been repelled by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who are defending Kobane.
What seems to have provoked this latest ISIL attempt to seize the border crossing have been reports that Turkey is soon going to allow 200 members of Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga to travel to Kobane to boost its defences. Sadly this is only partly true because Turkey had given permission for two Peshmerga artillery platoons totalling 150 fighters to travel to Kobane. These platoons will be allowed to bring their heavy weapons with them and their experience in directing artillery strikes also gives them the experience needed to direct air-strikes by the US-led coalition. However apart from ridiculously onerous reporting requirements that require the Peshmergas to account for every single bullet they bring with them Turkey is also demanding that in order to enter Kobane they must also bring 1,300 fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) with them which poses a whole host of extra problems.
Firstly it is not clear whether the FSA fighters will operate under the YPG's chain of command or whether they will run around doing their own thing making an already dire situation even more chaotic. Secondly the fact that these FSA fighters are currently located in Turkey rather then Syria demonstrates that they are nowhere near the standard of the YPG and Peshmerga fighters they will be expected to support. Also the FSA have a history of co-operation with ISIL - particularly over the kidnapping of Steven Sotloff the US journalist that ISIL killed in September - and they clearly enjoy a close relationship with Turkey who hate the Kurds. As such there are very serious questions over whether they can be trusted to operate in Kobane. Finally every extra fighter be it from the YPG, Peshmerga or FSA who is sent into Kobane will need to be kept supplied with food, water, ammunition and medical supplies to allow them to fight off ISIL.
As such it is possible that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is demanding that these FSA fighters are sent into Kobane in order for them to weaken they city's defences or even act as fifth columnists who will link up with ISIL to fight the YPG from inside. That way when ISIL take control of Kobane Erdogan will be able to open Turkey's border to supply ISIL with weapons and fighters or use ISIL's presence in Kobane as a pre-text to send Turkish troops to occupy northern Syria in much the same way they occupy northern Cyprus. It is much more likely though that Erdogan has calculated that he won't get permission to send Turkish troops into Syria. So instead he is trying to change the ethnic make-up of the area from Kurdish to Arab so he can use the FSA as a proxy for Turkish troops to occupy northern Syria.
Waking up today though it appears that Erdogan has abandoned both of those scenarios because the news of ISIL's fresh assault on Kobane's northern border crossing has prompted Turkey to suspend transfer of any troops to Kobane indefinitely due unspecified "technical reasons." As such it seems that Erdogan has gone back to his plan A of hoping that Kobane will soon be over-run.
On Friday (24/10/14) Erdogan actually provided the World with a prime example of the double game he is playing over ISIL. During the speech in Estonia in which he demanded that FSA fighters be sent to Kobane Erdogan went on to declare that Kobane shouldn't need to be a major priority for the US-coalition by saying; "Why are they so keen on Kobane, but not on the whole of Syria? That's a question to ask." - the implication of course being that there was some hidden (Kurdish) agenda behind the battle to save Kobane. So allow me to answer Erdogan's question;
At any given point during the 42 day battle for Kobane we have literally been a few short hours from the city falling under ISIL control and all of the 15,000 or so people in that city being slaughtered. Although Erdogan seems to find genocide amusing I most certainly do not. Even if Kobane were unoccupied though we would still need to battle to keep it out of ISIL's hands because if ISIL seize Kobane they will control a direct route from the Turkish border to their Syrian stronghold of Raqqa which is some 140km (84 miles) to the south-east. Also ISIL control Kobane means they will also control the main road linking Raqqa with Aleppo which sits 115km (70 miles) to the south-west of Kobane. And yes we also need to stop ISIL gaining control of Kobane to show that we can stop them and their victory is not guaranteed by god.
Having said all that though I do not consider Kobane to be anything other then a defencive priority. That is to say that once Kobane has been strengthened to the point that ISIL will be unable to seize control of it I think that the coalition should focus its efforts elsewhere. In fact I'm actually at the point where I would be quite happy to never have to type the word "Kobane" ever again. Unfortunately though Erdogan's behaviour means that I don't have that option.
While I am deeply unhappy at being forced to discuss matters of strategy here on the world wide web I don't think it is any secret that the overwhelming strength of the coalition's forces lie in Iraq. Therefore simple maths demands that the coalition's main push against ISIL is going to have to come from Iraq. In fact I'm already on record pointing out that I think it was a grievous mistake to begin the strategic bombing of ISIL's infrastructure in Syria before the group had been pushed out of Iraq. However in order to push ISIL out of Iraq the coalition first has to start conducting regular aerial patrols of the Iraq frontlines. In order to do that they need a local airbase to operate from. The obvious choice is United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik in Turkey. However the use of USAF Incirlik in still being blocked - by Erdogan.
As such it seems that the only possible response to Erdogan's speech was for the US to discreetly inform him of all this in no uncertain terms. However the US instead decided to indulge Erdogan further by reducing the number of air-strikes around Kobane to just 1 allowing Saturday's ISIL offencive to take place and increasing the number of air-strikes in Iraq to 22. However by some miracle the US actually managed to avoid carrying out any of those air-strikes around Zumar where the Peshmerga made gains against ISIL or Jurf al-Sakhar near Baghdad where Iraqi forces also made gains.
The moral and legal imperatives aside it is becoming increasingly impossible for US President Obama to continue placing the whims of Turkish President Erdogan over the interests of the US. You remember those ground troops that Obama definitely won't be sending into Iraq? Well on Thursday (23/10/14) they sustained their first death when Marine Lance Cpl. Sean Neal was killed in what is being described as a non-combat incident. That death highlights that even in a non-combat role this deployment does place US service personnel at increased risk so it is the responsibility of their Commander in Chief to successfully end this operation as quickly as possible.
Also Thursday the US saw its first terror attack related to the fight against ISIL when Zale Thompson who had self-radicalised via the Internet attacked 4 New York City police officers with an axe in the name of ISIL. Although I think the family of the man who is currently lying in an intensive care bed with an axe wound to his brain will dispute that this is insignificant it is certainly not the most serious terror attack that New York has ever seen. However in a nation where every citizen has the right to bear arms and has become synonymous with the mass shooting I don't think I really need to explain how much worse that attack could have been.
Therefore I think that it is long passed time that Obama fulfilled his duty to protect American civilians and either start conducting this war against ISIL properly or end it right now admitting that he simply doesn't have the stomach for it and genocide is something we're just going to have to learn to live with.
15:00 on 26/10/14 (UK date).
What seems to have provoked this latest ISIL attempt to seize the border crossing have been reports that Turkey is soon going to allow 200 members of Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga to travel to Kobane to boost its defences. Sadly this is only partly true because Turkey had given permission for two Peshmerga artillery platoons totalling 150 fighters to travel to Kobane. These platoons will be allowed to bring their heavy weapons with them and their experience in directing artillery strikes also gives them the experience needed to direct air-strikes by the US-led coalition. However apart from ridiculously onerous reporting requirements that require the Peshmergas to account for every single bullet they bring with them Turkey is also demanding that in order to enter Kobane they must also bring 1,300 fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) with them which poses a whole host of extra problems.
Firstly it is not clear whether the FSA fighters will operate under the YPG's chain of command or whether they will run around doing their own thing making an already dire situation even more chaotic. Secondly the fact that these FSA fighters are currently located in Turkey rather then Syria demonstrates that they are nowhere near the standard of the YPG and Peshmerga fighters they will be expected to support. Also the FSA have a history of co-operation with ISIL - particularly over the kidnapping of Steven Sotloff the US journalist that ISIL killed in September - and they clearly enjoy a close relationship with Turkey who hate the Kurds. As such there are very serious questions over whether they can be trusted to operate in Kobane. Finally every extra fighter be it from the YPG, Peshmerga or FSA who is sent into Kobane will need to be kept supplied with food, water, ammunition and medical supplies to allow them to fight off ISIL.
As such it is possible that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is demanding that these FSA fighters are sent into Kobane in order for them to weaken they city's defences or even act as fifth columnists who will link up with ISIL to fight the YPG from inside. That way when ISIL take control of Kobane Erdogan will be able to open Turkey's border to supply ISIL with weapons and fighters or use ISIL's presence in Kobane as a pre-text to send Turkish troops to occupy northern Syria in much the same way they occupy northern Cyprus. It is much more likely though that Erdogan has calculated that he won't get permission to send Turkish troops into Syria. So instead he is trying to change the ethnic make-up of the area from Kurdish to Arab so he can use the FSA as a proxy for Turkish troops to occupy northern Syria.
Waking up today though it appears that Erdogan has abandoned both of those scenarios because the news of ISIL's fresh assault on Kobane's northern border crossing has prompted Turkey to suspend transfer of any troops to Kobane indefinitely due unspecified "technical reasons." As such it seems that Erdogan has gone back to his plan A of hoping that Kobane will soon be over-run.
On Friday (24/10/14) Erdogan actually provided the World with a prime example of the double game he is playing over ISIL. During the speech in Estonia in which he demanded that FSA fighters be sent to Kobane Erdogan went on to declare that Kobane shouldn't need to be a major priority for the US-coalition by saying; "Why are they so keen on Kobane, but not on the whole of Syria? That's a question to ask." - the implication of course being that there was some hidden (Kurdish) agenda behind the battle to save Kobane. So allow me to answer Erdogan's question;
At any given point during the 42 day battle for Kobane we have literally been a few short hours from the city falling under ISIL control and all of the 15,000 or so people in that city being slaughtered. Although Erdogan seems to find genocide amusing I most certainly do not. Even if Kobane were unoccupied though we would still need to battle to keep it out of ISIL's hands because if ISIL seize Kobane they will control a direct route from the Turkish border to their Syrian stronghold of Raqqa which is some 140km (84 miles) to the south-east. Also ISIL control Kobane means they will also control the main road linking Raqqa with Aleppo which sits 115km (70 miles) to the south-west of Kobane. And yes we also need to stop ISIL gaining control of Kobane to show that we can stop them and their victory is not guaranteed by god.
Having said all that though I do not consider Kobane to be anything other then a defencive priority. That is to say that once Kobane has been strengthened to the point that ISIL will be unable to seize control of it I think that the coalition should focus its efforts elsewhere. In fact I'm actually at the point where I would be quite happy to never have to type the word "Kobane" ever again. Unfortunately though Erdogan's behaviour means that I don't have that option.
While I am deeply unhappy at being forced to discuss matters of strategy here on the world wide web I don't think it is any secret that the overwhelming strength of the coalition's forces lie in Iraq. Therefore simple maths demands that the coalition's main push against ISIL is going to have to come from Iraq. In fact I'm already on record pointing out that I think it was a grievous mistake to begin the strategic bombing of ISIL's infrastructure in Syria before the group had been pushed out of Iraq. However in order to push ISIL out of Iraq the coalition first has to start conducting regular aerial patrols of the Iraq frontlines. In order to do that they need a local airbase to operate from. The obvious choice is United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik in Turkey. However the use of USAF Incirlik in still being blocked - by Erdogan.
As such it seems that the only possible response to Erdogan's speech was for the US to discreetly inform him of all this in no uncertain terms. However the US instead decided to indulge Erdogan further by reducing the number of air-strikes around Kobane to just 1 allowing Saturday's ISIL offencive to take place and increasing the number of air-strikes in Iraq to 22. However by some miracle the US actually managed to avoid carrying out any of those air-strikes around Zumar where the Peshmerga made gains against ISIL or Jurf al-Sakhar near Baghdad where Iraqi forces also made gains.
The moral and legal imperatives aside it is becoming increasingly impossible for US President Obama to continue placing the whims of Turkish President Erdogan over the interests of the US. You remember those ground troops that Obama definitely won't be sending into Iraq? Well on Thursday (23/10/14) they sustained their first death when Marine Lance Cpl. Sean Neal was killed in what is being described as a non-combat incident. That death highlights that even in a non-combat role this deployment does place US service personnel at increased risk so it is the responsibility of their Commander in Chief to successfully end this operation as quickly as possible.
Also Thursday the US saw its first terror attack related to the fight against ISIL when Zale Thompson who had self-radicalised via the Internet attacked 4 New York City police officers with an axe in the name of ISIL. Although I think the family of the man who is currently lying in an intensive care bed with an axe wound to his brain will dispute that this is insignificant it is certainly not the most serious terror attack that New York has ever seen. However in a nation where every citizen has the right to bear arms and has become synonymous with the mass shooting I don't think I really need to explain how much worse that attack could have been.
Therefore I think that it is long passed time that Obama fulfilled his duty to protect American civilians and either start conducting this war against ISIL properly or end it right now admitting that he simply doesn't have the stomach for it and genocide is something we're just going to have to learn to live with.
15:00 on 26/10/14 (UK date).
Friday, 24 October 2014
Ukraine Decides.
In February 2014 Russia hosted the Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. As Russia has been resisting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) for several years now Saudi Arabia was furious that Russia had been granted such a prestigious global event. So in July 2013 Prince Bandar bin Sultan - the then head of Saudi intelligence - made it quite clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin that unless Russia dropped its opposition to ISIL then Saudi Arabia would conduct terror attacks against the Sochi games.
The first of those terror attacks occurred in Volgograd - a main transport hub for Sochi - on December 29th 2013 (29/12/13) when a female Islamist suicide bombing attacked the Volgograd-1 railways station killing 18 people and injuring 44. The second of these terror attacks occurred the following day (30/10/13) when another Islamist suicide bomber attacked a tram/trolley-bus in the Dzerzhinsky district of Volgograd killing 16 people and injuring 41. Further attacks were foiled on January 9th (9/1/14) when four cars packed with explosives were found in the town of Pyatigorsk which is 300km (200 miles) from Sochi. Only one of those car bombs exploded and the 6 men in the other 3 cars were found to have been shot in mysterious circumstances. All of those attacks have since been claimed by Vilayat Dagestan - an Islamist group who are currently fighting alongside ISIL. In fact there have been reports that Omar al-Shishani, Vilayat Dagestan's latest leader was recently killed by Kurdish fighters in the battle for Kobane/Ayn al-Arab.
The USA - Saudi Arabia's key ally - however realised that it would be too obvious and too controversial to simply launch terror attacks against the Sochi Olympics. So instead they devised a plan to more discreetly punish Russia for its opposition to ISIL. This involved backing criminal, neo-Nazi and Nazi groups in Sochi's Black Sea neighbour Ukraine to violently overthrow Ukraine's democratically elected President Viktor Yanukoyvch. That Coup d'etat was completed on February 22nd (22/2/14) just as the Sochi games were reaching their climatic final weekend. However the longer term plan was that the fascist groups such as Right Sector and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) who seized power would immediately start launching racist attacks against Ukraine's ethnically Russian minority. Then when that minority acted to protect themselves the US would be able to blame Russia and start imposing the economic sanctions they couldn't impose against Russia for opposing ISIL.
That is exactly what happened and so far the fighting has claimed more then 5000 lives including the 48 ethnic Russians who were massacred in Odessa and the 298 people who were killed in the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. More then 1 million people - almost exclusively ethnic Russians - have been forced to flee the country.
On Sunday (26/10/14) the Ukrainian people will finally be given a say in all this when the nation's first post-coup Parliamentary election is held.
With there being some 6,670 candidates representing 52 political parties I have simply not had the time to research who I would recommend the Ukrainian people vote for. After all US President Obama's seeming inability to decide whether he is currently at war with ISIL or still desperately in love with them is putting pressure on everybody's time. However it is extremely obvious who Ukrainians should avoid voting for.
The largest of this group is anyone connected to the Nazi and neo-Nazi groups such as Right Sector, the UIA and Svoboda who frequently represent them. As with all fascists these people are defined not by what they stand for and what they want to do but by who they hate and what they want to destroy. The destructive effect that these groups have on Ukrainian and all societies is neatly demonstrated by the Azov battalion who openly fly the Nazi Runes of Svoboda.
Formed in May 2014 of the fascist thugs who should have disbanded under the Geneva agreement the Azov battalion jumped at the chance to kill ethnic minorities and rushed into battle in Donbass. However their enthusiasm was not matched by either their skill or their preparation and the entire battalion was quickly surrounded in Ilovaisk with all but 200 of the 1000 strong battalion being captured or killed. However rather then admit their mistakes and take responsibility for them what remained of the Azov battalion instead tried to blame their failure on Ukraine's elected President Petro Poroshenko and staged further violent demonstrations calling for his overthrow just as he was trying to negotiate a peace deal to end the civil war.
The other group that Ukrainian voters should avoid at all costs is anyone associated Yulia Tymoshenko's Fatherland Party and their current, self-appointed Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk in particular. Although I understand that they've recently re-branded themselves as "People's Front" Fatherland's entire ideology is anti-Russia with even their name is meant to counter the Russian concept of "Motherland" by invoking memories of Hitler's "Fatherland." Despite never winning an election Tymoshenko, Yatsenyuk and their cronies have held power in Ukraine on numerous occasions and these occasions have always resulted in political and economic strife for Ukraine. In fact it seems that the only reason that Fatherland joined their more extreme peers in this latest coup was to free Tymoshenko from prison where she was being punished for stealing billions of dollars from the Ukrainian people.
To see the damaging effects of Fatherland's obsessions with embezzlement and anti-Russian rhetoric you only need to look at Yatsenyuk's current spell as Prime Minister. Listening to him speak it is clear that he has no plan to rescue Ukraine's economy which is shrinking at a terrifying 10% a year. It is clear that he has no plan to pay off Ukraine's massive debts and secure a supply of gas for winter. It is also clear that he doesn't have any plan to clean up Ukraine's bureaucracy in order to cut corruption and make Ukraine a European-style nation of laws. Yatsenyuk does though have a plan to blame and fight Russia at every opportunity. In fact in a speech shortly after seizing office to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) of all places Yatsenyuk seemed to declare that if Ukraine hadn't given up its nuclear weapons he would use them to start a nuclear war with Russia. That is a dangerous man to have in charge of any nation.
Hopefully then the people of Ukraine will heed this advice and the advice of others when they vote on Sunday because it is clear that if they want to achieve a better future for themselves and their country they will need to choose leaders who wish to create and build rather then leaders who simply want to steal and fight.
16:10 on 24/10/14 (UK date).
The first of those terror attacks occurred in Volgograd - a main transport hub for Sochi - on December 29th 2013 (29/12/13) when a female Islamist suicide bombing attacked the Volgograd-1 railways station killing 18 people and injuring 44. The second of these terror attacks occurred the following day (30/10/13) when another Islamist suicide bomber attacked a tram/trolley-bus in the Dzerzhinsky district of Volgograd killing 16 people and injuring 41. Further attacks were foiled on January 9th (9/1/14) when four cars packed with explosives were found in the town of Pyatigorsk which is 300km (200 miles) from Sochi. Only one of those car bombs exploded and the 6 men in the other 3 cars were found to have been shot in mysterious circumstances. All of those attacks have since been claimed by Vilayat Dagestan - an Islamist group who are currently fighting alongside ISIL. In fact there have been reports that Omar al-Shishani, Vilayat Dagestan's latest leader was recently killed by Kurdish fighters in the battle for Kobane/Ayn al-Arab.
The USA - Saudi Arabia's key ally - however realised that it would be too obvious and too controversial to simply launch terror attacks against the Sochi Olympics. So instead they devised a plan to more discreetly punish Russia for its opposition to ISIL. This involved backing criminal, neo-Nazi and Nazi groups in Sochi's Black Sea neighbour Ukraine to violently overthrow Ukraine's democratically elected President Viktor Yanukoyvch. That Coup d'etat was completed on February 22nd (22/2/14) just as the Sochi games were reaching their climatic final weekend. However the longer term plan was that the fascist groups such as Right Sector and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) who seized power would immediately start launching racist attacks against Ukraine's ethnically Russian minority. Then when that minority acted to protect themselves the US would be able to blame Russia and start imposing the economic sanctions they couldn't impose against Russia for opposing ISIL.
That is exactly what happened and so far the fighting has claimed more then 5000 lives including the 48 ethnic Russians who were massacred in Odessa and the 298 people who were killed in the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. More then 1 million people - almost exclusively ethnic Russians - have been forced to flee the country.
On Sunday (26/10/14) the Ukrainian people will finally be given a say in all this when the nation's first post-coup Parliamentary election is held.
With there being some 6,670 candidates representing 52 political parties I have simply not had the time to research who I would recommend the Ukrainian people vote for. After all US President Obama's seeming inability to decide whether he is currently at war with ISIL or still desperately in love with them is putting pressure on everybody's time. However it is extremely obvious who Ukrainians should avoid voting for.
The largest of this group is anyone connected to the Nazi and neo-Nazi groups such as Right Sector, the UIA and Svoboda who frequently represent them. As with all fascists these people are defined not by what they stand for and what they want to do but by who they hate and what they want to destroy. The destructive effect that these groups have on Ukrainian and all societies is neatly demonstrated by the Azov battalion who openly fly the Nazi Runes of Svoboda.
Formed in May 2014 of the fascist thugs who should have disbanded under the Geneva agreement the Azov battalion jumped at the chance to kill ethnic minorities and rushed into battle in Donbass. However their enthusiasm was not matched by either their skill or their preparation and the entire battalion was quickly surrounded in Ilovaisk with all but 200 of the 1000 strong battalion being captured or killed. However rather then admit their mistakes and take responsibility for them what remained of the Azov battalion instead tried to blame their failure on Ukraine's elected President Petro Poroshenko and staged further violent demonstrations calling for his overthrow just as he was trying to negotiate a peace deal to end the civil war.
The other group that Ukrainian voters should avoid at all costs is anyone associated Yulia Tymoshenko's Fatherland Party and their current, self-appointed Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk in particular. Although I understand that they've recently re-branded themselves as "People's Front" Fatherland's entire ideology is anti-Russia with even their name is meant to counter the Russian concept of "Motherland" by invoking memories of Hitler's "Fatherland." Despite never winning an election Tymoshenko, Yatsenyuk and their cronies have held power in Ukraine on numerous occasions and these occasions have always resulted in political and economic strife for Ukraine. In fact it seems that the only reason that Fatherland joined their more extreme peers in this latest coup was to free Tymoshenko from prison where she was being punished for stealing billions of dollars from the Ukrainian people.
To see the damaging effects of Fatherland's obsessions with embezzlement and anti-Russian rhetoric you only need to look at Yatsenyuk's current spell as Prime Minister. Listening to him speak it is clear that he has no plan to rescue Ukraine's economy which is shrinking at a terrifying 10% a year. It is clear that he has no plan to pay off Ukraine's massive debts and secure a supply of gas for winter. It is also clear that he doesn't have any plan to clean up Ukraine's bureaucracy in order to cut corruption and make Ukraine a European-style nation of laws. Yatsenyuk does though have a plan to blame and fight Russia at every opportunity. In fact in a speech shortly after seizing office to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) of all places Yatsenyuk seemed to declare that if Ukraine hadn't given up its nuclear weapons he would use them to start a nuclear war with Russia. That is a dangerous man to have in charge of any nation.
Hopefully then the people of Ukraine will heed this advice and the advice of others when they vote on Sunday because it is clear that if they want to achieve a better future for themselves and their country they will need to choose leaders who wish to create and build rather then leaders who simply want to steal and fight.
16:10 on 24/10/14 (UK date).
Thursday, 23 October 2014
Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 3, Day 3.
It now turns out that Turkey has not given permission for 200 Kurdish Peshmerga fighter to take their heavy weapons to relieve Kobane/Ayn al-Arab via Turkey. Yesterday the Iraqi Kurdish government gave them permission to travel to Syria and by all accounts they are already packed and ready to go. All they are waiting for now is permission from the Turkish government which has simply acknowledged that it has received a request for permission.
Meanwhile the battle for the strategically important city that sits just 1km (0.6miles) from Syria's northern border with Turkey has begun to turn against the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) who are defending it. Since sustaining heavy losses and being pushed to the outskirts of the city last weekend the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) have been steadily reinforcing their positions around Kobane in preparation for a fresh assault on the city. That assault was launched overnight and succeeded in ISIL re-capturing Tall Shair hill. This of course is the tactically important hill which controls the roughly 4km (2.5 mile) area of open ground in which the YPG can receive fresh supplies via air-drops. Fortunately though it appears that ISIL have not been able to advance down Tall Shair into the area between the hill and the city. As I write reports are beginning to emerge that a YPG counter-attack has again forced ISIL from the hill.
Despite this fresh offensive and an increase in the build up of ISIL forces around Kobane the US-led coalition has actually been reducing the number of air-strikes it has been carrying out. On Tuesday (21/10/14) they carried out just 4 air-strikes against ISIL buildings, fighting positions and ground units. On Wednesday (22/10/14) they carried out 6 strikes against ISIL vehicles, fighting positions and a logistics centre. Today they've carried out only 4 air-strikes against vehicles, fighting positions and a command and control centre. This are quite clearly not being sufficient to prevent an ISIL advance. They may be just enough though if Turkey were to allow those 200 Peshmerga and their heavy weapons to enter Kobane.
As well as their fresh attempt to seize Kobane it also appears that ISIL have been continuing their efforts to eradicate Iraq's Yazidis around Mount Sinjar. On Tuesday ISIL's advance was stopped at the village of Sharfadin. However since then Peshmerga fighters have been unable to push back ISIL meaning that they are again trapped at the foot of the mountain and in danger of being pushed back up Mount Sinjar as they were back in August when the coalition operation began. In their efforts to resist ISIL at Sharfadin the Peshmerga are receiving absolutely no support for the coalition either in the form of air-drops of supplies or air-strikes against ISIL positions. This is particularly frustrating because there are 44 strike aircraft belonging to non-US members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) that could quite quickly force ISIL back from the foot of Mount Sinjar while the US concentrates of Kobane. Unfortunately US President Barack Obama is denying those 44 aircraft permission to join in with the fight.
While I'm here I should also point out that I seem to have come to the attention of a Turkish nationalist on Twitter which is proving rather tiresome. After all there is nothing like a dozen Tweets inside a minute to let you know that you are dealing with a calm and rational thinker. Basically this person's position is that all Kurds are terrorists citing the 2012 Gaziantep bombing and the 2008 bombing in Istanbul’s Güngören district as examples. These two examples stand out from bombings carried out by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) because they targeted civilians rather then military targets do give me an opportunity to bring up Turkey's rather murky internal politics.
When modern Turkey was formed by Mustafa Ataturk following the fall of the Ottoman Empire (the last Islamic Caliphate) in 1920 its Constitution gave the military a very strong role as the defenders of the secular nation against politicians trying to pursue a religious agenda. As a result there have been four military coups in Turkey and there has long been talk of a mysterious "Ergenekon" group made up of members of the Turkish Establishment who monitor the actions of the government and will act to overthrow it if Turkey's secular values are threatened.
If the Ergenekon group did exist then they would represent a very serious threat to current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has not only attempted to change Turkey's constitution but also seems to have a clear Islamist agenda. For example he not only made it legal for women to wear the Muslim headscarf he also actively encourages it. Erdogan must have been very worried about Ergenekon because in 2007 he began a formal investigation into them which resulted in the conviction of 200+ people by 2013. In 2012 300+ people were jailed in the "Sledgehammer" plot for plotting to remove Erdogan just after he came to power in 2003. The Güngören bombing happened just after the Ergenekon investigation was opened and the Gaziantep bombing happened just before the trials were due to come to a close. As a result they both seem to have been the work of the Turkish deep state in order to use the threat of 'Kurdish Terrorism' to remind people how important the work of the deep state is and possibly trigger another coup to remove Erdogan.
In 2009 Erdogan began a peace process with the Kurds in order to secure the votes needed to change the constitution - including to allow him to increase to powers of the President's office that he now holds. However he now seems keen to play the Kurdish terrorism card to secure the support of the Turkish nationalists. After all his support for a virulently Islamist group such as ISIL certainly violates Turkey's secular constitution.
18:00 on 23/10/14 (UK date).
Meanwhile the battle for the strategically important city that sits just 1km (0.6miles) from Syria's northern border with Turkey has begun to turn against the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) who are defending it. Since sustaining heavy losses and being pushed to the outskirts of the city last weekend the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) have been steadily reinforcing their positions around Kobane in preparation for a fresh assault on the city. That assault was launched overnight and succeeded in ISIL re-capturing Tall Shair hill. This of course is the tactically important hill which controls the roughly 4km (2.5 mile) area of open ground in which the YPG can receive fresh supplies via air-drops. Fortunately though it appears that ISIL have not been able to advance down Tall Shair into the area between the hill and the city. As I write reports are beginning to emerge that a YPG counter-attack has again forced ISIL from the hill.
Despite this fresh offensive and an increase in the build up of ISIL forces around Kobane the US-led coalition has actually been reducing the number of air-strikes it has been carrying out. On Tuesday (21/10/14) they carried out just 4 air-strikes against ISIL buildings, fighting positions and ground units. On Wednesday (22/10/14) they carried out 6 strikes against ISIL vehicles, fighting positions and a logistics centre. Today they've carried out only 4 air-strikes against vehicles, fighting positions and a command and control centre. This are quite clearly not being sufficient to prevent an ISIL advance. They may be just enough though if Turkey were to allow those 200 Peshmerga and their heavy weapons to enter Kobane.
As well as their fresh attempt to seize Kobane it also appears that ISIL have been continuing their efforts to eradicate Iraq's Yazidis around Mount Sinjar. On Tuesday ISIL's advance was stopped at the village of Sharfadin. However since then Peshmerga fighters have been unable to push back ISIL meaning that they are again trapped at the foot of the mountain and in danger of being pushed back up Mount Sinjar as they were back in August when the coalition operation began. In their efforts to resist ISIL at Sharfadin the Peshmerga are receiving absolutely no support for the coalition either in the form of air-drops of supplies or air-strikes against ISIL positions. This is particularly frustrating because there are 44 strike aircraft belonging to non-US members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) that could quite quickly force ISIL back from the foot of Mount Sinjar while the US concentrates of Kobane. Unfortunately US President Barack Obama is denying those 44 aircraft permission to join in with the fight.
While I'm here I should also point out that I seem to have come to the attention of a Turkish nationalist on Twitter which is proving rather tiresome. After all there is nothing like a dozen Tweets inside a minute to let you know that you are dealing with a calm and rational thinker. Basically this person's position is that all Kurds are terrorists citing the 2012 Gaziantep bombing and the 2008 bombing in Istanbul’s Güngören district as examples. These two examples stand out from bombings carried out by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) because they targeted civilians rather then military targets do give me an opportunity to bring up Turkey's rather murky internal politics.
When modern Turkey was formed by Mustafa Ataturk following the fall of the Ottoman Empire (the last Islamic Caliphate) in 1920 its Constitution gave the military a very strong role as the defenders of the secular nation against politicians trying to pursue a religious agenda. As a result there have been four military coups in Turkey and there has long been talk of a mysterious "Ergenekon" group made up of members of the Turkish Establishment who monitor the actions of the government and will act to overthrow it if Turkey's secular values are threatened.
If the Ergenekon group did exist then they would represent a very serious threat to current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has not only attempted to change Turkey's constitution but also seems to have a clear Islamist agenda. For example he not only made it legal for women to wear the Muslim headscarf he also actively encourages it. Erdogan must have been very worried about Ergenekon because in 2007 he began a formal investigation into them which resulted in the conviction of 200+ people by 2013. In 2012 300+ people were jailed in the "Sledgehammer" plot for plotting to remove Erdogan just after he came to power in 2003. The Güngören bombing happened just after the Ergenekon investigation was opened and the Gaziantep bombing happened just before the trials were due to come to a close. As a result they both seem to have been the work of the Turkish deep state in order to use the threat of 'Kurdish Terrorism' to remind people how important the work of the deep state is and possibly trigger another coup to remove Erdogan.
In 2009 Erdogan began a peace process with the Kurds in order to secure the votes needed to change the constitution - including to allow him to increase to powers of the President's office that he now holds. However he now seems keen to play the Kurdish terrorism card to secure the support of the Turkish nationalists. After all his support for a virulently Islamist group such as ISIL certainly violates Turkey's secular constitution.
18:00 on 23/10/14 (UK date).
Wednesday, 22 October 2014
Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 3, Day 2.
Yesterday evening (GMT) Kobane/Ayn al-Arab again came under attack from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). For the residents of this beleaguered city which sits just 1km (0.6 miles) from Syria's northern border with Turkey this is nothing new because they have been under almost constant attack for more then a month now.
What was unusual is that shortly after the attack people in the immediate area started complaining of breathing problems, a burning sensation in their eyes and burns to their skin. Displaying almost superhuman levels of professionalism doctors who treated the injured have not confirmed that this was a chemical weapons attack because they simply don't have the resources to definitively prove that. However looking at the pictures that are coming out of Kobane it seems clear that a blister agent similar to Mustard Gas has been used.
At around the time this attack was taking place the US' Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Samantha Power was using an open discussion at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on the middle-east in general to deliver a thundering condemnation of the Syrian government. A significant part of this tirade involved accusing the Syrian government of using chemical weapons - specifically chlorine - in northern Syria.
As such I think that it is only fitting that Ambassador Power uses her time at the UNSC today to table a motion demanding that inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are granted immediate and unrestricted access to Kobane and the surrounding areas in order carry out an investigation.
After all if the Syrian government is using ISIL and US-led coalition air-strikes as a cover to carry out chemical weapons attacks that is certainly something we should know about.
11:55 on 22/10/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 18:50 on 22/19/14 (UK date) to add;
As the working day at the UN building in New York draws to a close the US' Ambassador Power has so far failed to call for an investigation into last night's chemical weapons attack on Kobane or in fact raise the issue in any way. Therefore I can only assume that Ambassador Power considers ISIL's use of a schedule 1 chemical weapon to be less important then the Syrian government's alleged use of Chlorine which is considered an irritant alongside tear gas and pepper spray.
There has been slightly better news though with the Kurdish Parliament in Iraq confirming that 200 Peshmerga fighters will soon be sent to Kobane via Turkey. They will bring with them heavy weapons of an undisclosed nature which should help reduce the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who are defending Kobane reliance on air-strikes by the US-led coalition and the damage they are doing to the city. However this does not mean that the battle for Kobane is over because those Peshmergas will need to be kept supplied with food and medical supplies and their weapons will need to be supplied with ammunition. As such the re-supply of Kobane remains a critical objective and is something that must be done routinely as long as ISIL surround the city.
Despite being forced to let all these Peshmergas through as a one off it seems that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is going to continue to block regular re-supply by road. Rather like ISIL's own propaganda arm and the Al Jazeera TV network which seems to be acting as such Erdogan has seized upon the single bundle of supplies that ISIL captured from Sunday's (19/10/14) coalition air-drop. Erdogan has been using this as 'evidence' that it is far too dangerous to make further air-drops to Kobane in case some of supplies fall into ISIL's hands.
This is of course a nonsense because the US has today confirmed that in fact 2 bundles from the air-drop missed their targets. One was destroyed in an air-strike while the second fell into ISIL's hands. This means that the air-drop has supplied ISIL with 1/28th of 1 week's supplies which should last them around half a day. Although any gains ISIL would have made from this mistake are nominal at worst there are steps that can be taken to prevent any repeat in future air-drops particularly if some of those Peshmerga have been trained to act as forward air controllers. Besides if Erdogan would allow supplies in by road there wouldn't be any need to rely on air-drops.
Also today there have been dramatic and chaotic scenes in Canada's capital Ottawa. What appears to have happened is that a gunman or gunmen opened fire on two soldiers - who were ceremonially guarding the cities war memorial - killing one before heading to the Parliament building where one gunman was killed in a shoot-out. This led to a police lock-down of the Parliament and numerous other buildings across the city - including the US Embassy which is a few hundred metres away - while the situation was brought under control. This comes two days after a man who had previously been stopped from travelling to Syria to join ISIL was shot and killed by police on Monday (20/10/14) after running down two Canadian soldiers killing one. This type of "run-over terror attack" is actually very common within Israel. In fact a particularly depressing one occurred today in which a 3 month old baby was killed. However I think that was a result of increased Israeli/Palestinian tensions over plans to allow non-Muslims to pray on the Temple Mount/Al-Asqa Mosque rather then being anything to do with ISIL.
Following Monday's terror attack the Canadians seemed to indicate their frustration that they have deployed 6 F/A-18 strike aircraft to join the fight against ISIL. However like 38 other strike aircraft deployed by non-US NATO members (plus Australia) these Canadian aircraft have been unable to fly any missions because they do not have an airbase to operate from and US President Barack Obama is still refusing to put meaningful pressure on Erdogan to let them use Incirlik. Following the start of the incident in Ottawa which closed the US Embassy the US deployment to the joint North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) announced that it would be making extra strike aircraft available to respond. As even I think this would be a massive over-reaction to deal with even several gunmen this seemed like a particularly ill timed American retaliation for Canada's criticism of the way the anti-ISIL operation is being handled by the US. Canada responded to this by temporarily closing its Embassy in Washington, US. Officially this was done out of security concerns but strikes me as an indication of frayed diplomatic tempers.
At the moment the Canadians are unable to confirm how many gunmen were involved in today's incident let alone speculate on their motives. However the assumption that everyone seems to be working under is that they were connected in ISIL in someway. Up until around August of this year Canada along with the UK and other European Monarchies were very keen for their young Muslims to travel to Syria in order to fight alongside ISIL. In fact you could argue that British news channel's (BBC and Channel 4) hysterical coverage of the most recent Gaza war was intentionally inaccurate in order to act as an ISIL recruiting sergeant. Then suddenly government policy in those countries changed meaning that many people who were just on the cusp of going off to Syria to sign up were suddenly prevented from doing so. Having already been radicalised these people are now starting to try and fight for ISIL by planning attacks against their home nations. I think this is what has happened in Canada and there was actually a very similar case in the UK last Friday (17/10/14) when four men were charged with plotting a similar shooting attack against British soldiers and police officers.
So rather then being carried out by ISIL members who have been trained in Syria and sent back to their home nations to carry out attacks I think that these attacks are being carried out by people who didn't quite make it into ISIL acting on their own with what they find around them. As these men don't have any training and are often isolated the damage they can inflict is greatly reduced. However because they are "lone-wolves" who are previously unknown to the security services their attacks are very difficult to predict and prevent.
Therefore the main way that nations are going to be able to protect themselves from this type of attack is by quickly destroying the mystique that surrounds ISIL. This can be done by showing that they are not invincible because they can be stopped advancing into places such as Kobane and they can be forced out of territory they occupy. If Obama is not prepared to this is then it would be better for the US to end its operations against ISIL now and try and find a way to appease them in the hope they will eventually stop their destructive rampage.
That is because if the US carries on with this current operation that is neither one thing nor the other ISIL are simply going to be provoked increasing the likelihood of more attacks in western nations including America meaning that civilian lives are being placed in danger.
20:05 on 22/10/14 (UK date).
What was unusual is that shortly after the attack people in the immediate area started complaining of breathing problems, a burning sensation in their eyes and burns to their skin. Displaying almost superhuman levels of professionalism doctors who treated the injured have not confirmed that this was a chemical weapons attack because they simply don't have the resources to definitively prove that. However looking at the pictures that are coming out of Kobane it seems clear that a blister agent similar to Mustard Gas has been used.
At around the time this attack was taking place the US' Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Samantha Power was using an open discussion at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on the middle-east in general to deliver a thundering condemnation of the Syrian government. A significant part of this tirade involved accusing the Syrian government of using chemical weapons - specifically chlorine - in northern Syria.
As such I think that it is only fitting that Ambassador Power uses her time at the UNSC today to table a motion demanding that inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are granted immediate and unrestricted access to Kobane and the surrounding areas in order carry out an investigation.
After all if the Syrian government is using ISIL and US-led coalition air-strikes as a cover to carry out chemical weapons attacks that is certainly something we should know about.
11:55 on 22/10/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 18:50 on 22/19/14 (UK date) to add;
As the working day at the UN building in New York draws to a close the US' Ambassador Power has so far failed to call for an investigation into last night's chemical weapons attack on Kobane or in fact raise the issue in any way. Therefore I can only assume that Ambassador Power considers ISIL's use of a schedule 1 chemical weapon to be less important then the Syrian government's alleged use of Chlorine which is considered an irritant alongside tear gas and pepper spray.
There has been slightly better news though with the Kurdish Parliament in Iraq confirming that 200 Peshmerga fighters will soon be sent to Kobane via Turkey. They will bring with them heavy weapons of an undisclosed nature which should help reduce the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who are defending Kobane reliance on air-strikes by the US-led coalition and the damage they are doing to the city. However this does not mean that the battle for Kobane is over because those Peshmergas will need to be kept supplied with food and medical supplies and their weapons will need to be supplied with ammunition. As such the re-supply of Kobane remains a critical objective and is something that must be done routinely as long as ISIL surround the city.
Despite being forced to let all these Peshmergas through as a one off it seems that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is going to continue to block regular re-supply by road. Rather like ISIL's own propaganda arm and the Al Jazeera TV network which seems to be acting as such Erdogan has seized upon the single bundle of supplies that ISIL captured from Sunday's (19/10/14) coalition air-drop. Erdogan has been using this as 'evidence' that it is far too dangerous to make further air-drops to Kobane in case some of supplies fall into ISIL's hands.
This is of course a nonsense because the US has today confirmed that in fact 2 bundles from the air-drop missed their targets. One was destroyed in an air-strike while the second fell into ISIL's hands. This means that the air-drop has supplied ISIL with 1/28th of 1 week's supplies which should last them around half a day. Although any gains ISIL would have made from this mistake are nominal at worst there are steps that can be taken to prevent any repeat in future air-drops particularly if some of those Peshmerga have been trained to act as forward air controllers. Besides if Erdogan would allow supplies in by road there wouldn't be any need to rely on air-drops.
Also today there have been dramatic and chaotic scenes in Canada's capital Ottawa. What appears to have happened is that a gunman or gunmen opened fire on two soldiers - who were ceremonially guarding the cities war memorial - killing one before heading to the Parliament building where one gunman was killed in a shoot-out. This led to a police lock-down of the Parliament and numerous other buildings across the city - including the US Embassy which is a few hundred metres away - while the situation was brought under control. This comes two days after a man who had previously been stopped from travelling to Syria to join ISIL was shot and killed by police on Monday (20/10/14) after running down two Canadian soldiers killing one. This type of "run-over terror attack" is actually very common within Israel. In fact a particularly depressing one occurred today in which a 3 month old baby was killed. However I think that was a result of increased Israeli/Palestinian tensions over plans to allow non-Muslims to pray on the Temple Mount/Al-Asqa Mosque rather then being anything to do with ISIL.
Following Monday's terror attack the Canadians seemed to indicate their frustration that they have deployed 6 F/A-18 strike aircraft to join the fight against ISIL. However like 38 other strike aircraft deployed by non-US NATO members (plus Australia) these Canadian aircraft have been unable to fly any missions because they do not have an airbase to operate from and US President Barack Obama is still refusing to put meaningful pressure on Erdogan to let them use Incirlik. Following the start of the incident in Ottawa which closed the US Embassy the US deployment to the joint North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) announced that it would be making extra strike aircraft available to respond. As even I think this would be a massive over-reaction to deal with even several gunmen this seemed like a particularly ill timed American retaliation for Canada's criticism of the way the anti-ISIL operation is being handled by the US. Canada responded to this by temporarily closing its Embassy in Washington, US. Officially this was done out of security concerns but strikes me as an indication of frayed diplomatic tempers.
At the moment the Canadians are unable to confirm how many gunmen were involved in today's incident let alone speculate on their motives. However the assumption that everyone seems to be working under is that they were connected in ISIL in someway. Up until around August of this year Canada along with the UK and other European Monarchies were very keen for their young Muslims to travel to Syria in order to fight alongside ISIL. In fact you could argue that British news channel's (BBC and Channel 4) hysterical coverage of the most recent Gaza war was intentionally inaccurate in order to act as an ISIL recruiting sergeant. Then suddenly government policy in those countries changed meaning that many people who were just on the cusp of going off to Syria to sign up were suddenly prevented from doing so. Having already been radicalised these people are now starting to try and fight for ISIL by planning attacks against their home nations. I think this is what has happened in Canada and there was actually a very similar case in the UK last Friday (17/10/14) when four men were charged with plotting a similar shooting attack against British soldiers and police officers.
So rather then being carried out by ISIL members who have been trained in Syria and sent back to their home nations to carry out attacks I think that these attacks are being carried out by people who didn't quite make it into ISIL acting on their own with what they find around them. As these men don't have any training and are often isolated the damage they can inflict is greatly reduced. However because they are "lone-wolves" who are previously unknown to the security services their attacks are very difficult to predict and prevent.
Therefore the main way that nations are going to be able to protect themselves from this type of attack is by quickly destroying the mystique that surrounds ISIL. This can be done by showing that they are not invincible because they can be stopped advancing into places such as Kobane and they can be forced out of territory they occupy. If Obama is not prepared to this is then it would be better for the US to end its operations against ISIL now and try and find a way to appease them in the hope they will eventually stop their destructive rampage.
That is because if the US carries on with this current operation that is neither one thing nor the other ISIL are simply going to be provoked increasing the likelihood of more attacks in western nations including America meaning that civilian lives are being placed in danger.
20:05 on 22/10/14 (UK date).
Tuesday, 21 October 2014
Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 3, Day 1.
Yesterday the US-led coalition air-dropped 27 bundles of weapons, ammunition and medical supplies provided by the Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq to the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who have been defending the strategically important city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which sits just 1km (0.6 miles) from Syria's border with Turkey. Of those bundles 26 were successfully recovered by the YPG while the 27th missed it's target and was seized by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who quickly released a video showing their success. What they have been a lot less keen to show you is what happened shortly afterwards when a coalition air-strike destroyed the enitre area around that 27th bundle.
Despite this air-drop which the YPG estimate will sustain them for roughly a week the battle of Kobane is still not over and the city is still far from secure. Although they have been forced out of most of the city ISIL continue to occupy three large sections of the east of the city close to the northern border crossing, the governance district and the south-eastern entrance to the city. This gives ISIL control of around 20% of the Kobane. They also continue to control the majority of the area surrounding the city including Mistenur hill to the south-east although they have been forced off Tall Shair hill to the west and the area between Tall Shair and Kobane.
From these positions ISIL have been able to continue raining artillery, mortar and tank fire down on the city. Last night ISIL launched something of a fresh assault on the northern border crossing area leading to significant fighting. However it is not yet clear whether this was a substantial attempt by ISIL to seize more territory, rescue fighters that are trapped in the area or simply harassment type raids intended to wear down the defenders ahead of a full assault. Whatever the intention the YPG were able to repel these attacks with the help of 6 coalition air-strikes that targeted ISIL mortar and other firing positions.
This latest wave of fighting goes to the core of the negotiations over bringing Peshmerga forces into Kobane via Turkey which Turkey promised to open shortly after the coalition air-drop. Although you can never have too many of them the YPG in Kobane don't really need large numbers of troops to reinforce them. What they need instead is a small number of highly trained field commanders with specialist skills such as acting as as forward air controllers. The main thing the YPG need though is advanced medium and heavy weapons such as mortars and MILAN-type anti-tank missiles.
At the moment if the YPG are faced with a tank, suicide truck bomb, heavy machine or even a well defended sniper position their only option is to request a coalition air-strike. As far as I can tell this involves the YPG telephoning someone in Turkey who in turn will telephone someone in Iraq who will speak to an American who will request an air-strike. If approved it will take an hour or so for the aircraft to turn up and carry out the strike. By that time the target may well have killed the YPG fighters requesting the strike, moved so the strike happens dangerously close to the YPG positions or has simply withdrawn from the area entirely. If the YPG had more advanced weapons they could simply take out any target as soon as they identify it making their defence that much more effective and freeing up coalition aircraft for other tasks.
As such rather then being about the number of Kurdish fighters being moved through Turkey and where they've come from (Iraq, Turkey or Syria) discussions with Turkey should be more focused on what types of equipment those fighters can bring with them.
One thing that is becoming increasingly apparent is that ISIL are growing deeply frustrated by their inability to seize Kobane. As a result they yesterday lashed out by launching a fresh attack in the Sinjar mountains region of Iraq. The main target here seems to have been the village of Sharfadin which contains one of the few remaining shrines belonging to the Yazidi religion. As such ISIL seem to have launched this attack in order to demonstrate that they are still capable of wiping out people they view as infidels and destroying their holy sites. Unfortunately for ISIL this effort failed with the attack being repelled by Peshmerga fighters following a day of fighting.
Also yesterday ISIL launched a suicide truck bomb against a Peshmerga check-point close to the Mosul Dam which is around 120 km (70 miles) north-west of the Iraqi Kurdish capital Arbil and 40km (24 miles) north-west of ISIL held Mosul. This suicide bomb was destroyed by the Peshmerga before it reached the check-point meaning that nobody other then the driver was killed in the attack. Also it was not followed up by any other ISIL vehicles or fighters meaning that it was not an attempt to seize the dam. As such it seems best described as ISIL throwing something of a childish tempter tantrum.
Within Iraq's capital Baghdad ISIL's campaign of suicide bombings has continued with 12 people being killed in twin bombings in the predominately Shia district of Talbiyah this morning. This brings to 62 the total of people killed in bombings in Baghdad in the past 5 days. As I mentioned yesterday the purpose of these bombings seems to be to provoke Baghdad's Shia population into carrying out revenge attacks that will force Baghdad's Sunni population into supporting ISIL allowing ISIL to take control of Baghdad from within. Sadly there does seem to be some evidence that this is beginning to work with the Iraqi police in Baghdad's Karrada district engaging in gun battles overnight with the Shia Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia who are demanding better protection for Baghdad's Shias.
The events close to Sinjar and in particular at Mosul Dam and Baghdad serve to highlight what a serious mistake it was for the coalition to abandon operations in Iraq in favour of swanning off to bomb oil refineries in Syria. It is beyond dispute that the coalitions forces are at their strongest in Iraq because even the YPG will freely admit that the Peshmerga are larger in number and better equipped. Dwarfing both them and ISIL is the Iraqi military which even operating at only 50% strength still numbers some 135,000 men who are armed with tanks and other battlefield weapons. This massive advantage in strength - ISIL only number around 32,000 - should have been used to impose a series of quick defeats on ISIL that would have broken their morale reducing the risk of revenge attacks such as that seen in Canada where a "lone-wolf" jihadist today killed a Canadian soldier and wounded another.
In short by deciding to start bombing Syria before the operation in Iraq was completed US President Barack Obama has made exactly the same mistake that his predecessor George W Bush did when he decided to invade Iraq before the operation in Afghanistan was completed. Given this faithful recreation of the last decade of US history it seems a shame that Obama can't muster even a little bit of Dubya's "You're Either With Us Or Against Us!" bravado.
17:20 on 21/10/14 (UK date).
Despite this air-drop which the YPG estimate will sustain them for roughly a week the battle of Kobane is still not over and the city is still far from secure. Although they have been forced out of most of the city ISIL continue to occupy three large sections of the east of the city close to the northern border crossing, the governance district and the south-eastern entrance to the city. This gives ISIL control of around 20% of the Kobane. They also continue to control the majority of the area surrounding the city including Mistenur hill to the south-east although they have been forced off Tall Shair hill to the west and the area between Tall Shair and Kobane.
From these positions ISIL have been able to continue raining artillery, mortar and tank fire down on the city. Last night ISIL launched something of a fresh assault on the northern border crossing area leading to significant fighting. However it is not yet clear whether this was a substantial attempt by ISIL to seize more territory, rescue fighters that are trapped in the area or simply harassment type raids intended to wear down the defenders ahead of a full assault. Whatever the intention the YPG were able to repel these attacks with the help of 6 coalition air-strikes that targeted ISIL mortar and other firing positions.
This latest wave of fighting goes to the core of the negotiations over bringing Peshmerga forces into Kobane via Turkey which Turkey promised to open shortly after the coalition air-drop. Although you can never have too many of them the YPG in Kobane don't really need large numbers of troops to reinforce them. What they need instead is a small number of highly trained field commanders with specialist skills such as acting as as forward air controllers. The main thing the YPG need though is advanced medium and heavy weapons such as mortars and MILAN-type anti-tank missiles.
At the moment if the YPG are faced with a tank, suicide truck bomb, heavy machine or even a well defended sniper position their only option is to request a coalition air-strike. As far as I can tell this involves the YPG telephoning someone in Turkey who in turn will telephone someone in Iraq who will speak to an American who will request an air-strike. If approved it will take an hour or so for the aircraft to turn up and carry out the strike. By that time the target may well have killed the YPG fighters requesting the strike, moved so the strike happens dangerously close to the YPG positions or has simply withdrawn from the area entirely. If the YPG had more advanced weapons they could simply take out any target as soon as they identify it making their defence that much more effective and freeing up coalition aircraft for other tasks.
As such rather then being about the number of Kurdish fighters being moved through Turkey and where they've come from (Iraq, Turkey or Syria) discussions with Turkey should be more focused on what types of equipment those fighters can bring with them.
One thing that is becoming increasingly apparent is that ISIL are growing deeply frustrated by their inability to seize Kobane. As a result they yesterday lashed out by launching a fresh attack in the Sinjar mountains region of Iraq. The main target here seems to have been the village of Sharfadin which contains one of the few remaining shrines belonging to the Yazidi religion. As such ISIL seem to have launched this attack in order to demonstrate that they are still capable of wiping out people they view as infidels and destroying their holy sites. Unfortunately for ISIL this effort failed with the attack being repelled by Peshmerga fighters following a day of fighting.
Also yesterday ISIL launched a suicide truck bomb against a Peshmerga check-point close to the Mosul Dam which is around 120 km (70 miles) north-west of the Iraqi Kurdish capital Arbil and 40km (24 miles) north-west of ISIL held Mosul. This suicide bomb was destroyed by the Peshmerga before it reached the check-point meaning that nobody other then the driver was killed in the attack. Also it was not followed up by any other ISIL vehicles or fighters meaning that it was not an attempt to seize the dam. As such it seems best described as ISIL throwing something of a childish tempter tantrum.
Within Iraq's capital Baghdad ISIL's campaign of suicide bombings has continued with 12 people being killed in twin bombings in the predominately Shia district of Talbiyah this morning. This brings to 62 the total of people killed in bombings in Baghdad in the past 5 days. As I mentioned yesterday the purpose of these bombings seems to be to provoke Baghdad's Shia population into carrying out revenge attacks that will force Baghdad's Sunni population into supporting ISIL allowing ISIL to take control of Baghdad from within. Sadly there does seem to be some evidence that this is beginning to work with the Iraqi police in Baghdad's Karrada district engaging in gun battles overnight with the Shia Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia who are demanding better protection for Baghdad's Shias.
The events close to Sinjar and in particular at Mosul Dam and Baghdad serve to highlight what a serious mistake it was for the coalition to abandon operations in Iraq in favour of swanning off to bomb oil refineries in Syria. It is beyond dispute that the coalitions forces are at their strongest in Iraq because even the YPG will freely admit that the Peshmerga are larger in number and better equipped. Dwarfing both them and ISIL is the Iraqi military which even operating at only 50% strength still numbers some 135,000 men who are armed with tanks and other battlefield weapons. This massive advantage in strength - ISIL only number around 32,000 - should have been used to impose a series of quick defeats on ISIL that would have broken their morale reducing the risk of revenge attacks such as that seen in Canada where a "lone-wolf" jihadist today killed a Canadian soldier and wounded another.
In short by deciding to start bombing Syria before the operation in Iraq was completed US President Barack Obama has made exactly the same mistake that his predecessor George W Bush did when he decided to invade Iraq before the operation in Afghanistan was completed. Given this faithful recreation of the last decade of US history it seems a shame that Obama can't muster even a little bit of Dubya's "You're Either With Us Or Against Us!" bravado.
17:20 on 21/10/14 (UK date).
Oscar Pistorius Sentencing
On the second day of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) October meeting South Africa has finally passed sentence on Oscar Pistorius after a week of delays. For the offence on Culpable Homicide in relation to the death of Reeva Steenkamp Pistorius has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Under South African law one of the big test cases for the charge of Culpable Homicide is State v Van As (1979). Here the defendant slapped a man in the face during an argument. That man fell to the floor, banged his head and subsequently died. The defendant was sentenced to a fine of R50 (USD1.8) and one month in prison.
In State v Dube (1999) the defendant crashed a bus he was driving in Lydenburg killing 28 people including 27 British tourists. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
In Sate v Ndlovu (2011) the defendant crashed a bus he was driving in Limpopo killing 14 people. He was fined R20,000 (USD1800) and served no jail time.
As such it is impossible to view Oscar Pistorius' sentence of 5 years imprisonment as anything other then grossly and maliciously excessive.
Therefore I expect the next chapter in this saga will be Pistorius appealing that sentence treating us all to another round of Court room drama. Then once Pistorius' sentence has be reduced to time served the State Prosecutor Gerrie Nel - who still seems to believe that Pistorius was convicted of murder - will face a misconduct hearing in order to promote discussion about political interference within the South African legal system.
With President Zuma and his spy types that's something of a very hot issue in South Africa at the moment.
15:30 on 21/10/14 (UK date).
Under South African law one of the big test cases for the charge of Culpable Homicide is State v Van As (1979). Here the defendant slapped a man in the face during an argument. That man fell to the floor, banged his head and subsequently died. The defendant was sentenced to a fine of R50 (USD1.8) and one month in prison.
In State v Dube (1999) the defendant crashed a bus he was driving in Lydenburg killing 28 people including 27 British tourists. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
In Sate v Ndlovu (2011) the defendant crashed a bus he was driving in Limpopo killing 14 people. He was fined R20,000 (USD1800) and served no jail time.
As such it is impossible to view Oscar Pistorius' sentence of 5 years imprisonment as anything other then grossly and maliciously excessive.
Therefore I expect the next chapter in this saga will be Pistorius appealing that sentence treating us all to another round of Court room drama. Then once Pistorius' sentence has be reduced to time served the State Prosecutor Gerrie Nel - who still seems to believe that Pistorius was convicted of murder - will face a misconduct hearing in order to promote discussion about political interference within the South African legal system.
With President Zuma and his spy types that's something of a very hot issue in South Africa at the moment.
15:30 on 21/10/14 (UK date).
Monday, 20 October 2014
Ebola: 70-70-60.
On October 15th (15/10/14) the World Health Organisation (WHO) predicted that by the start of December there will be 10,000 new cases of Ebola in west Africa each week. So far there have only been 9000 cases of Ebola in total. If that grim prediction becomes true then the virus will completely overwhelm the already over-stretched healthcare systems in west Africa and it will become impossible to control Ebola's spread. That will have absolutely devastating effects on those Ebola affected nations because at that rate of infection the entire population of Sierra Leone will have been wiped out by Ebola in just 38 months.
To avoid this nightmare scenario the WHO predicts that within 60 days 70% of Ebola patients will have to be isolated in hospital and 70% of Ebola victims will have to have to be safely buried. There are currently 55 days left to meet that target.
The target of getting 70% of patients isolated in hospital is going to be particularly difficult because there simply aren't the hospitals to put them in. The international community led by the US has sent troops (some 4000 in America's case) to help build new hospitals and train people to staff them. However this strikes me as something of a futile exercise because 90% of Ebola patients will die of the disease. Plus for every 70 beds in one of these new hospitals an extra USD1million per month will have to be found to operate them. Therefore you have to question the logic of bringing Ebola patients into hospitals where they can infect other patients and staff which further weakens the nation's healthcare system making it harder for it to fight other killer diseases such as Measles, Malaria and Cholera.
So although it seems extremely heartless I think that the priority should be making sure that the Ebola dead are buried before they can infect others. After all at some point 9 out of every 10 Ebola patients will become one of the Ebola dead. At the moment Ebola affected nations operate an emergency service where corpse recovery teams will come out to people's homes in order to collect the bodies of people who have died of Ebola, disinfect the area and identify anybody who has come in contact with the deceased so they can be monitored for signs of infection. The problem is that these corpse recovery teams are badly underfunded and badly understaffed meaning that they can take days and even weeks to respond to call outs. During this time the corpses are often left lying in the street when they can infect many people.
Therefore it might be worth considering a neighbourhood based system to deal with the dead. This would involve dispatching body bags, disinfectant and protective equipment such as gloves, raincoats etc in bulk to key buildings such as a police station, school, Church, elder's home etc within a neighbourhood or village. Then when someone dies of Ebola their family or other people who have been caring for them can be issued with a kit that allows them to spray the body with disinfectant, place it in a sealed body bag and then spray the body bag itself with disinfectant. That will greatly reduce the chances of that corpse going on to infect other people while it is waiting to be removed for burial. As people would have to fill in a form to get the kit it would also help build up a picture of who has been in contact with Ebola so they can be monitored to avoid them further spreading the infection.
Anyway that's my off the top of my head contribution. Feel free to ignore it if it's stupid.
18:50 on 20/10/14 (UK date).
To avoid this nightmare scenario the WHO predicts that within 60 days 70% of Ebola patients will have to be isolated in hospital and 70% of Ebola victims will have to have to be safely buried. There are currently 55 days left to meet that target.
The target of getting 70% of patients isolated in hospital is going to be particularly difficult because there simply aren't the hospitals to put them in. The international community led by the US has sent troops (some 4000 in America's case) to help build new hospitals and train people to staff them. However this strikes me as something of a futile exercise because 90% of Ebola patients will die of the disease. Plus for every 70 beds in one of these new hospitals an extra USD1million per month will have to be found to operate them. Therefore you have to question the logic of bringing Ebola patients into hospitals where they can infect other patients and staff which further weakens the nation's healthcare system making it harder for it to fight other killer diseases such as Measles, Malaria and Cholera.
So although it seems extremely heartless I think that the priority should be making sure that the Ebola dead are buried before they can infect others. After all at some point 9 out of every 10 Ebola patients will become one of the Ebola dead. At the moment Ebola affected nations operate an emergency service where corpse recovery teams will come out to people's homes in order to collect the bodies of people who have died of Ebola, disinfect the area and identify anybody who has come in contact with the deceased so they can be monitored for signs of infection. The problem is that these corpse recovery teams are badly underfunded and badly understaffed meaning that they can take days and even weeks to respond to call outs. During this time the corpses are often left lying in the street when they can infect many people.
Therefore it might be worth considering a neighbourhood based system to deal with the dead. This would involve dispatching body bags, disinfectant and protective equipment such as gloves, raincoats etc in bulk to key buildings such as a police station, school, Church, elder's home etc within a neighbourhood or village. Then when someone dies of Ebola their family or other people who have been caring for them can be issued with a kit that allows them to spray the body with disinfectant, place it in a sealed body bag and then spray the body bag itself with disinfectant. That will greatly reduce the chances of that corpse going on to infect other people while it is waiting to be removed for burial. As people would have to fill in a form to get the kit it would also help build up a picture of who has been in contact with Ebola so they can be monitored to avoid them further spreading the infection.
Anyway that's my off the top of my head contribution. Feel free to ignore it if it's stupid.
18:50 on 20/10/14 (UK date).
Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 2, Day 7.
On Saturday (18/10/14) the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) began gathering fighters from across their territory to mount a fresh assault on the strategically important city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which sits just 1km (0.6 miles) from Syria's border with Turkey. According to some reports these reinforcements included members of what is effectively ISIL's police force who in the days prior had been spending their time directing traffic in the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa which is around 140km (84 miles) to the south-east of Kobane. On Saturday night this fresh ISIL assault was launched and quickly repelled by Kobane's Kurdish defenders. This put everyone into something of a holding pattern while ISIL worked out what their next move was going to be.
ISIL could send more reinforcements to Kobane in order to launch a fresh assault to capture the city. Alternatively - as has been ISIL's pattern throughout the conflict - they could decide that Kobane is now too tough a target for them to take and simply give up in order to attack softer targets. Annoyingly the US-led coalition's attempts to destroy ISIL's command and control structures actually makes it harder to predict what ISIL will do next. However in the past three weeks or so there has been a significant increase in the number of suicide bombings carried out by ISIL in Shia districts of Iraq's capital Baghdad. In fact there have been 25 bombings in the past 96 hours of so that have killed at least 50 people. These bombings seem intended to provoke Baghdad's Shia residents to carry out revenge attacks against Baghdad's Sunnis prompting the Sunnis to side with ISIL allowing them to seize control of the city from within.
Other potential soft targets that ISIL may go after include the Iraq/Syria border area around the Sinjar mountains and the town of Rabia which is around 125km (75 miles) north-west of the ISIL controlled city of Mosul. The city of Mosul which is obviously close to the Mosul Dam which was liberated by Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga back in August sits around 80km (50 miles) to the west of the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Arbil and around 330km (200 miles) north of Baghdad. Within Syria there is the border town of Sari Kani which sits around 100km (60 miles) to the east of Kobane which will also give ISIL the link they want into Turkey. Hopefully though this time the coalition will be aware of the threat and have a plan in place to intervene long before the situation gets as desperate as it did in Kobane.
On Sunday night the US dramatically broke the tension by air-dropping supplies provided by the Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq to the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that have been defending Kobane. Although for obvious reasons exact details of what supplies were delivered aren't available it seems that 27 pallets containing a mix of small-arms (assault rifles), ammunition and medical supplies successfully reached the YPG. Depending on how the situation in Kobane develops I would estimate that these supplies will last between 1 and 2 weeks. Therefore there will need to be further air-drops in order to allow the YPG to mount a continuing defence of Kobane.
Although they were gratefully received on the ground the greatest impact of this air-drop is likely to be on Turkey who had refused to allow the supply planes to travel through its air-space. By carrying out the air-drop the US has shown Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that no matter how much he attempts to obstruct the coalition operation against ISIL the coalition will not only find a way around those obstacles it will also find ways to punish Turkey for its violation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014). This message already seems to have had some impact on Turkey because in the hours following the air-drop Turkey is now claiming that it is going to allow Kurdish Peshmerga fighters from Iraq to travel through Turkey in order to help the YPG defend Kobane.
However Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was keen to stress that this plan was only at the negotiating stage meaning that it is likely going to require further work before Peshmerga fighters actually start arriving in Kobane.
16:30 on 20/10/14 (UK date).
ISIL could send more reinforcements to Kobane in order to launch a fresh assault to capture the city. Alternatively - as has been ISIL's pattern throughout the conflict - they could decide that Kobane is now too tough a target for them to take and simply give up in order to attack softer targets. Annoyingly the US-led coalition's attempts to destroy ISIL's command and control structures actually makes it harder to predict what ISIL will do next. However in the past three weeks or so there has been a significant increase in the number of suicide bombings carried out by ISIL in Shia districts of Iraq's capital Baghdad. In fact there have been 25 bombings in the past 96 hours of so that have killed at least 50 people. These bombings seem intended to provoke Baghdad's Shia residents to carry out revenge attacks against Baghdad's Sunnis prompting the Sunnis to side with ISIL allowing them to seize control of the city from within.
Other potential soft targets that ISIL may go after include the Iraq/Syria border area around the Sinjar mountains and the town of Rabia which is around 125km (75 miles) north-west of the ISIL controlled city of Mosul. The city of Mosul which is obviously close to the Mosul Dam which was liberated by Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga back in August sits around 80km (50 miles) to the west of the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Arbil and around 330km (200 miles) north of Baghdad. Within Syria there is the border town of Sari Kani which sits around 100km (60 miles) to the east of Kobane which will also give ISIL the link they want into Turkey. Hopefully though this time the coalition will be aware of the threat and have a plan in place to intervene long before the situation gets as desperate as it did in Kobane.
On Sunday night the US dramatically broke the tension by air-dropping supplies provided by the Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq to the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that have been defending Kobane. Although for obvious reasons exact details of what supplies were delivered aren't available it seems that 27 pallets containing a mix of small-arms (assault rifles), ammunition and medical supplies successfully reached the YPG. Depending on how the situation in Kobane develops I would estimate that these supplies will last between 1 and 2 weeks. Therefore there will need to be further air-drops in order to allow the YPG to mount a continuing defence of Kobane.
Although they were gratefully received on the ground the greatest impact of this air-drop is likely to be on Turkey who had refused to allow the supply planes to travel through its air-space. By carrying out the air-drop the US has shown Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that no matter how much he attempts to obstruct the coalition operation against ISIL the coalition will not only find a way around those obstacles it will also find ways to punish Turkey for its violation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014). This message already seems to have had some impact on Turkey because in the hours following the air-drop Turkey is now claiming that it is going to allow Kurdish Peshmerga fighters from Iraq to travel through Turkey in order to help the YPG defend Kobane.
However Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was keen to stress that this plan was only at the negotiating stage meaning that it is likely going to require further work before Peshmerga fighters actually start arriving in Kobane.
16:30 on 20/10/14 (UK date).
Sunday, 19 October 2014
Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 2, Day 6.
Although I've not really had time to cover it the US-led coalition has been continuing with its policy of conducting air-strikes against oil storage and refinery facilities controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) within Syria. For example on Friday (17/10/14) the coalition struck a facility in Shadadi - around 20km (12 miles) south-west of Al-Hasakah, 140km (84 miles) north-east of Dayr az Zawr - which contained a pump station and petroleum, oil and lubricant (POL) tanks. As with Khorasan Shadadi is also the name of a province in Iran.
As I've explained on multiple occasions these strikes against ISIL controlled oil facilities seem to have very little military value. Any effect they have on disrupting ISIL funding through the black market sale of oil is unlikely to be felt on the battlefield for months if not years and they certainly have no impact on foreign donations which is ISIL's main source of income. In the immediate term though these strikes are going to make life much more difficult for civilians trapped within ISIL controlled territory. This could well lead to those civilians starting to think that the coalition is attacking them rather than ISIL causing them to side with ISIL making it much harder for those areas to be liberated when the time comes.
Making matters even worse on Saturday (18/10/14) coalition air-strikes hit a fuel distribution depot in Khasham which is just 9km (5.4 miles) on the outskirts of Dayr az Zawr which is around 115km (70 miles) south-east of the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa along the Euphrates River. Although there are no details of any ISIL fighters being killed it is being reported that 8 civilians - who were likely being forced to work at gun point - were killed in the attack. I don't think I need to explain how this will be used to claim that the US is simply trying to kill Muslims rather then defeat ISIL.
What the coalition should be doing instead is concentrating its firepower into areas where ISIL are still trying to advance. This includes the area around Iraq's capital Baghdad and also the city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which sits just 1km (0.6miles) from Syria's border with Turkey and some 140km (84 miles) to the north-west of Raqqa.
As I mentioned on Friday Kobane's Kurdish defenders had withstood a substantial attempt by ISIL to seize the city following a month long siege. By Friday night the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) had succeeded in reclaiming control of Kobane's south-western entrance and had contained ISIL fighters in three small pockets of the city around the north-eastern border crossing, the eastern "governance district" and the south-eastern entrance to the city.
As a result over Friday night there was sporadic fighting in all three of these areas and the north-eastern border crossing in particular. However unlike previous incidents of fighting in that area this seemed to be ISIL fighters trying to escape from Kobane rather then trying to cut it off from the outside world. The major concern is that because they still have at least partial control over the south-eastern entrance to Kobane ISIL have been able to bring in heavier weapons such as mortars. Armed with little more then assault rifles the YPG have little response to this type of weapon and are therefore very reliant on coalition air-strikes over which they seem to have little influence.
With the noose around Kobane being partially loosened by the YPG's recent gains they have been able to bring in a medium sized company (roughly 200) of fresh fighters from the surrounding villages. These have included stragglers from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) who are dotted around northern Syria. This is particularly interesting because it shows that the people that US President Barack Obama wants to lead the fight against ISIL - the FSA - have themselves been forced to admit that it is the Kurds who are the only ones capable of leading the fight and they are already doing so.
Despite the fact that the YPG have been able to bring in limited reinforcements ISIL have been able to bring in far more resources. Throughout Saturday ISIL called up fighters from across five separate areas to converge on Kobane. On Saturday night those ISIL fighters launched a concerted effort to enter Kobane via the south-western entrance and cut the city off from YPG units that are holding the western hill of Tall Shair. Although this attack was conducted using ISIL's standard tactic of driving suicide truck bombs at enemy positions before following up with infantry behind armoured vehicles the YPG were able to repel this attack although there is talk of substantial casualties. I am still waiting for details of what - if any - air-strikes the coalition carried out in order to help repel this latest assault.
This latest round of fighting does really serve to further underline why the re-supply of Kobane has become a critical priority. Although the YPG have been able to bring fresh fighters into the city those fighter will all need food, water, ammunition and medical supplies. If Turkey continues to refuse to allow those supplies to be brought in by road across its border then the coalition needs to conduct air-drops to deliver those supplies. After all it is clear that ISIL are desperate to re-capture the area to the west of Kobane where any such air-drop could occur and if those air-drops don't occur I doubt anyone will ever believe that the coalition is doing all it can to defend Kobane.
Due to the US' seeming inability to put pressure on Turkey to either open its border or allow the coalition to use United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik in the fight against ISIL it seems unlikely that Turkey will open its border to re-supply Kobane. In fact according to Turkey's Aydinlik Daily news agency Turkey has actually moved further towards establishing formal diplomatic ties with ISIL by allowing them to open an Consulate in the Cankaya district of Turkey's capital Ankara. This Consulate (basically a small Embassy) has apparently been issuing visas for those wishing to fight alongside ISIL and means that in effect Turkey has recognised ISIL occupied areas as a formal state.
A further indication of close co-operation between ISIL and Turkey came with the news that ISIL is training pilots to fly 3 Su-24 multi-role fighter aircraft that it captured from the Syrian air force. Although these are amongst the targets that should have been destroyed in the first wave of air-strikes in Syria I don't consider them a substantial threat because they can be quickly dealt with if they do start causing problems. However when you start to talk about resolving the threat of ISIL aircraft you start getting close to a discussion about imposing a no-fly zone which has been a key demand of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Therefore the relationship between the two seems to be that Erdogan demands so ISIL provide and vice versa.
As a result I think it is now time for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to meet to discuss Turkey's violation of resolution 2170 (2014). After all it's pretty obvious that Erdogan is desperate to show Turkish nationalists that he can wrap the US and the international community around his little finger so they'll help him stay out of prison on corruption charges.
12:50 on 19/10/14 (UK date).
As I've explained on multiple occasions these strikes against ISIL controlled oil facilities seem to have very little military value. Any effect they have on disrupting ISIL funding through the black market sale of oil is unlikely to be felt on the battlefield for months if not years and they certainly have no impact on foreign donations which is ISIL's main source of income. In the immediate term though these strikes are going to make life much more difficult for civilians trapped within ISIL controlled territory. This could well lead to those civilians starting to think that the coalition is attacking them rather than ISIL causing them to side with ISIL making it much harder for those areas to be liberated when the time comes.
Making matters even worse on Saturday (18/10/14) coalition air-strikes hit a fuel distribution depot in Khasham which is just 9km (5.4 miles) on the outskirts of Dayr az Zawr which is around 115km (70 miles) south-east of the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa along the Euphrates River. Although there are no details of any ISIL fighters being killed it is being reported that 8 civilians - who were likely being forced to work at gun point - were killed in the attack. I don't think I need to explain how this will be used to claim that the US is simply trying to kill Muslims rather then defeat ISIL.
What the coalition should be doing instead is concentrating its firepower into areas where ISIL are still trying to advance. This includes the area around Iraq's capital Baghdad and also the city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which sits just 1km (0.6miles) from Syria's border with Turkey and some 140km (84 miles) to the north-west of Raqqa.
As I mentioned on Friday Kobane's Kurdish defenders had withstood a substantial attempt by ISIL to seize the city following a month long siege. By Friday night the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) had succeeded in reclaiming control of Kobane's south-western entrance and had contained ISIL fighters in three small pockets of the city around the north-eastern border crossing, the eastern "governance district" and the south-eastern entrance to the city.
As a result over Friday night there was sporadic fighting in all three of these areas and the north-eastern border crossing in particular. However unlike previous incidents of fighting in that area this seemed to be ISIL fighters trying to escape from Kobane rather then trying to cut it off from the outside world. The major concern is that because they still have at least partial control over the south-eastern entrance to Kobane ISIL have been able to bring in heavier weapons such as mortars. Armed with little more then assault rifles the YPG have little response to this type of weapon and are therefore very reliant on coalition air-strikes over which they seem to have little influence.
With the noose around Kobane being partially loosened by the YPG's recent gains they have been able to bring in a medium sized company (roughly 200) of fresh fighters from the surrounding villages. These have included stragglers from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) who are dotted around northern Syria. This is particularly interesting because it shows that the people that US President Barack Obama wants to lead the fight against ISIL - the FSA - have themselves been forced to admit that it is the Kurds who are the only ones capable of leading the fight and they are already doing so.
Despite the fact that the YPG have been able to bring in limited reinforcements ISIL have been able to bring in far more resources. Throughout Saturday ISIL called up fighters from across five separate areas to converge on Kobane. On Saturday night those ISIL fighters launched a concerted effort to enter Kobane via the south-western entrance and cut the city off from YPG units that are holding the western hill of Tall Shair. Although this attack was conducted using ISIL's standard tactic of driving suicide truck bombs at enemy positions before following up with infantry behind armoured vehicles the YPG were able to repel this attack although there is talk of substantial casualties. I am still waiting for details of what - if any - air-strikes the coalition carried out in order to help repel this latest assault.
This latest round of fighting does really serve to further underline why the re-supply of Kobane has become a critical priority. Although the YPG have been able to bring fresh fighters into the city those fighter will all need food, water, ammunition and medical supplies. If Turkey continues to refuse to allow those supplies to be brought in by road across its border then the coalition needs to conduct air-drops to deliver those supplies. After all it is clear that ISIL are desperate to re-capture the area to the west of Kobane where any such air-drop could occur and if those air-drops don't occur I doubt anyone will ever believe that the coalition is doing all it can to defend Kobane.
Due to the US' seeming inability to put pressure on Turkey to either open its border or allow the coalition to use United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik in the fight against ISIL it seems unlikely that Turkey will open its border to re-supply Kobane. In fact according to Turkey's Aydinlik Daily news agency Turkey has actually moved further towards establishing formal diplomatic ties with ISIL by allowing them to open an Consulate in the Cankaya district of Turkey's capital Ankara. This Consulate (basically a small Embassy) has apparently been issuing visas for those wishing to fight alongside ISIL and means that in effect Turkey has recognised ISIL occupied areas as a formal state.
A further indication of close co-operation between ISIL and Turkey came with the news that ISIL is training pilots to fly 3 Su-24 multi-role fighter aircraft that it captured from the Syrian air force. Although these are amongst the targets that should have been destroyed in the first wave of air-strikes in Syria I don't consider them a substantial threat because they can be quickly dealt with if they do start causing problems. However when you start to talk about resolving the threat of ISIL aircraft you start getting close to a discussion about imposing a no-fly zone which has been a key demand of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Therefore the relationship between the two seems to be that Erdogan demands so ISIL provide and vice versa.
As a result I think it is now time for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to meet to discuss Turkey's violation of resolution 2170 (2014). After all it's pretty obvious that Erdogan is desperate to show Turkish nationalists that he can wrap the US and the international community around his little finger so they'll help him stay out of prison on corruption charges.
12:50 on 19/10/14 (UK date).
Friday, 17 October 2014
Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 2, Day 4.
At this point last week it looked as though the city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which sits just 1km (0.6 miles) from Syria's border with Turkey was on the verge of being over-run by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kobane was surrounded from the west, south and east. ISIL fighters were in control of 40% of the city on the eastern side and they were advancing on the northern border crossing that provided Kobane and its predominately Kurdish residents with its only link to the outside world.
It seemed then that ISIL were just hours away from securing a corridor from their stronghold of Raqqa - some 140km (84 miles) away - to Turkey through which they could smuggle oil out of Syria in return for weapons and fighters being smuggled in. If ISIL had reached the border with Turkey it would also have provided a pre-text for Turkey to send ground troops into Syria. As Turkey has previously tried to force its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) partners into a war against the Syrian government whilst blocking any attempts to fight ISIL and at the same time attacking the Kurds who have been fighting ISIL this would have been an absolutely disaster in the war against ISIL which would have only served to make them stronger.
Since last Saturday (11/10/14) the tide in the battle for Kobane seems to have turned firmly back in favour of its Kurdish defenders. First the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fought ISIL to a stop. Then on Monday (14/10/13) they repelled yet another ISIL attempt to seize the northern border crossing before breaking out to re-capture the hill of Tall Shair which sits 4km (2.4 miles) to the west of Kobane. As of Thursday (16/10/14) the YPG had forced ISIL fighters from the south and the west of the city re-capturing the south-western entrance to Kobane in the process. That further secured both the city and the stretch of open land between Kobane and Tall Shair. ISIL now control less then 20% of Kobane and their forces are largely trapped into two small sections in the east of the city around the hospital and the so-called "governance sector" which contains the YPG's former HQ. However the YPG have yet to re-gain control of the south-eastern entrance to the city
In this latest effort to defend Kobane from ISIL's advances the YPG have been aided by a substantial increase in the level of air-support provided by the US-led coalition. Although this support has fallen far short of the coalition's capacity on Monday and Tuesday (15/10/14) the coalition carried out 39 air-strikes which were largely focused on destroying ISIL buildings, troop staging areas and weapons and ammunition stores on the out-skirts of Kobane. On Wednesday (16/10/14) through Thursday the coalition carried out a further 14 air-strikes. However the key differences to emerge is that it now appears that the most ISIL positions on the out-skirts of Kobane have been either totally or partially destroyed. As a result the latest round of strikes have focused on buildings inside of Kobane itself which hold ISIL fighters and were being used as sniper and other fighting positions.
This type of close air-support means that there is now very little distance between the ISIL positions being struck and positions being held by YPG fighters. In a chaotic urban warfare environment this leads to a very real possibility that the YPG rather then ISIL will be killed in the strikes. In fact on Thursday there were reports - later disproved - that 5 YPG fighters had been killed in a strike meant for ISIL. As a result we may have reached the point that air-strikes have become ineffective by posing a greater risk to the YPG then ISIL. Therefore it may be better for the YPG to try and liberate the remaining areas under ISIL control without air-strikes or simply just contain ISIL within those areas until they either surrender or can be picked off by sniper fire. That said drones armed with Hellfire-type missiles have proved themselves to be terrifyingly efficient at conducting highly targeted strikes within this type of urban warfare setting.
Sadly all these gains by the YPG and losses by ISIL do not mean that the battle for Kobane is over and that the city is suddenly secure. During the fighting YPG within the city have been significantly weakened/degraded with 258 fighters killed (ISIL lost 374) along with substantial amounts of ammunition, food, water and medical supplies being used up. This means that unless Kobane is relieved and re-supplied soon it would be much easier for another big push from ISIL to over-run the city. As part of its efforts to assist ISIL in any way possible Turkey is still refusing to open its border with Syria to allow Kobane to be re-supplied by land.
If this obstruction from Turkey continues then in the coming hours and days the coalition is going to have to mount air-drops to Kobane. Not only would this re-supply significantly strengthen Kobane's defence it would also send the very strong message to ISIL that Kobane is being protected by the coalition and ISIL will not be allowed to seize it.
11:45 on 17/10/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 15:00 on 17/10/14 (UK date) to add;
Turkey's continued support for ISIL in defiance of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014) appears to be starting to leave the nation increasingly isolated on the international stage. Yesterday Turkey was defeated by New Zealand and Spain in its efforts to secure a seat on the UNSC. Despite the fact that vote went to a third round run-off between Spain and Turkey it always seemed to be a case of Spain falling just short rather then Turkey ever coming close. In fact when it became a straight choice between Turkey and Spain Turkey ended up losing 10 votes.
Although these votes are always done by a secret ballot this would have been a perfect opportunity for the US to announce that is was not supporting Turkey in order to send the message that if Turkey continues to refuse to allow the coalition to use United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik in the fight against ISIL then the coalition will withdraw its support for Turkey.
Further evidence of Turkey's increased isolation emerged yesterday when the US confirmed that over the weekend it had held direct talks with the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) which the US has designated a terrorist organisation at Turkey's request. Basically what has been happening is that the US has been trying to make the war against ISIL go on for as long as possible while it searches for this mysterious moderate Arab opposition to ISIL along with other assorted Unicorns.
Meanwhile the Netherlands have given permission for its citizens to go and fight alongside the Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq if they so wish. The UK has sent the Peshmerga heavy machine guns alongside troops to train them in their use. Germany has been supplying the Kurdish YPG with anti-tank missiles and other advanced weapons and has made clear that it intends to continue doing so regardless of what objections Turkey raises.
Therefore the US appears to have entered into these discussions with representatives of the PKK under severe duress from its NATO allies. As such the discussions are at a very early stage and the US is clearly not yet ready to announce that it will be asking to ask the Kurds to act as the ground forces in the coalition against ISIL. However it does seem that the meeting did provide an opportunity for the PKK to pass of details of ISIL positions in and around Kobane that were then hit by coalition air-strikes in the following days. This however does fall short of the real-time targeting that is required.
The reason why this face to face meeting between the US and representatives of the PKK has been kept so quiet is because Turkey has convinced the European Union (EU) who in turn have convinced the US that the PKK are a Marxist terrorist organisation. As a result I should probably clear up a few mis-conceptions about the PKK.
The main one of these is that the PKK actually only represent around 5% of the Kurds. For example the PKK aren't even the dominant party in Kobane which has always been a Kurdish stronghold. So the PKK and the YPG are most certainly not the same thing although obviously the people who already have para-military experience do hold key positions within the YPG. As such saying that all Kurds are terrorists because of the PKK is just as irrational as saying that all Muslims are terrorists because of ISIL.
Founded in 1978 the PKK are part of the radicalism of the 1970's alongside the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in Northern Ireland, the Red Brigades in Italy and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Palestine. This golden age of international terrorism occurred during the height of the Cold War when there was a stark political choice between being either Capitalist or Communist with no middle ground. As a result all these groups that had non-economic disputes with Capitalist governments would play up their Marxist tendencies in order to form allegiances with each other and gain support. Since then the ANC have gone on to govern South Africa for 20 years and have so far singularly failed to turn it into a Communist nation. Meanwhile the PLO have moved so far away from their Marxist roots that most people have long forgotten that they ever had Marxist roots. As such I think that the allegation that the PKK are Communists is more then a little melodramatic.
In terms of violence the PKK along with the PLO have always sat at the more militant end of the spectrum. However they have always conducted themselves as a rebel army rather than a terrorist group. That is to say that all of the PKK's attacks have been directed against legitimate military targets such as Turkish soldiers and the Turkish security forces such as the police. The PKK have never carried out bombing campaigns against civilian targets and certainly have never shown any interest is carrying out Islamist-style mass casualty attacks. In fact during the 36 years that the PKK have been in existence only 185 civilians have been killed in any of their operations which is an incredibly low collateral damage rate for any military force. So if we are going to refuse to help the Kurds because they are terrorists then there is absolutely no-one in the Syria conflict that the coalition can support and we're going to have to invent a whole new word for what ISIL are.
Despite their increasing international isolation there are no indications that Turkey is going to side with the coalition over ISIL by allowing the coalition to use Incirlik. This is on the verge of becoming a major problem because if Kobane is hardened as a target then everything that ISIL have done up until now indicates that they will simply start going after softer targets instead. These softer targets are likely to be in and around Baghdad in Iraq and ISIL has already started launching waves of suicide attacks in Baghdad's Shia neighbourhoods. If ISIL do switch their focus to Baghdad the threat they pose can easily be contained by the coalition mounting "Operation Northern Watch" style air patrols over the front lines. However before they can do that they need a decision on whether Incirlik is to be used or whether they need to make alternative plans.
In order to plug the gap left by the indecision over Incirlik the UK has decided to deploy armed Reaper drones from a base in Kuwait. Although they lack a substantial punch these Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drones can patrol the skies over Iraq for long periods of time and can take limited action to disrupt ISIL ground operations when the need arises.
On a final note I should point out that the main reason why UK Prime Minister David Cameron is coming out of this fight against ISIL looking rather good while US President Barack Obama is starting to look like a dangerous incompetent is very simple. While Obama seems to be telling his Generals what to do in order to deal with concerns about his Democrat Party's electoral chances Cameron is simply asking his Generals what needs to be done.
16:15 on 17/10/14 (UK date).
It seemed then that ISIL were just hours away from securing a corridor from their stronghold of Raqqa - some 140km (84 miles) away - to Turkey through which they could smuggle oil out of Syria in return for weapons and fighters being smuggled in. If ISIL had reached the border with Turkey it would also have provided a pre-text for Turkey to send ground troops into Syria. As Turkey has previously tried to force its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) partners into a war against the Syrian government whilst blocking any attempts to fight ISIL and at the same time attacking the Kurds who have been fighting ISIL this would have been an absolutely disaster in the war against ISIL which would have only served to make them stronger.
Since last Saturday (11/10/14) the tide in the battle for Kobane seems to have turned firmly back in favour of its Kurdish defenders. First the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fought ISIL to a stop. Then on Monday (14/10/13) they repelled yet another ISIL attempt to seize the northern border crossing before breaking out to re-capture the hill of Tall Shair which sits 4km (2.4 miles) to the west of Kobane. As of Thursday (16/10/14) the YPG had forced ISIL fighters from the south and the west of the city re-capturing the south-western entrance to Kobane in the process. That further secured both the city and the stretch of open land between Kobane and Tall Shair. ISIL now control less then 20% of Kobane and their forces are largely trapped into two small sections in the east of the city around the hospital and the so-called "governance sector" which contains the YPG's former HQ. However the YPG have yet to re-gain control of the south-eastern entrance to the city
In this latest effort to defend Kobane from ISIL's advances the YPG have been aided by a substantial increase in the level of air-support provided by the US-led coalition. Although this support has fallen far short of the coalition's capacity on Monday and Tuesday (15/10/14) the coalition carried out 39 air-strikes which were largely focused on destroying ISIL buildings, troop staging areas and weapons and ammunition stores on the out-skirts of Kobane. On Wednesday (16/10/14) through Thursday the coalition carried out a further 14 air-strikes. However the key differences to emerge is that it now appears that the most ISIL positions on the out-skirts of Kobane have been either totally or partially destroyed. As a result the latest round of strikes have focused on buildings inside of Kobane itself which hold ISIL fighters and were being used as sniper and other fighting positions.
This type of close air-support means that there is now very little distance between the ISIL positions being struck and positions being held by YPG fighters. In a chaotic urban warfare environment this leads to a very real possibility that the YPG rather then ISIL will be killed in the strikes. In fact on Thursday there were reports - later disproved - that 5 YPG fighters had been killed in a strike meant for ISIL. As a result we may have reached the point that air-strikes have become ineffective by posing a greater risk to the YPG then ISIL. Therefore it may be better for the YPG to try and liberate the remaining areas under ISIL control without air-strikes or simply just contain ISIL within those areas until they either surrender or can be picked off by sniper fire. That said drones armed with Hellfire-type missiles have proved themselves to be terrifyingly efficient at conducting highly targeted strikes within this type of urban warfare setting.
Sadly all these gains by the YPG and losses by ISIL do not mean that the battle for Kobane is over and that the city is suddenly secure. During the fighting YPG within the city have been significantly weakened/degraded with 258 fighters killed (ISIL lost 374) along with substantial amounts of ammunition, food, water and medical supplies being used up. This means that unless Kobane is relieved and re-supplied soon it would be much easier for another big push from ISIL to over-run the city. As part of its efforts to assist ISIL in any way possible Turkey is still refusing to open its border with Syria to allow Kobane to be re-supplied by land.
If this obstruction from Turkey continues then in the coming hours and days the coalition is going to have to mount air-drops to Kobane. Not only would this re-supply significantly strengthen Kobane's defence it would also send the very strong message to ISIL that Kobane is being protected by the coalition and ISIL will not be allowed to seize it.
11:45 on 17/10/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 15:00 on 17/10/14 (UK date) to add;
Turkey's continued support for ISIL in defiance of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014) appears to be starting to leave the nation increasingly isolated on the international stage. Yesterday Turkey was defeated by New Zealand and Spain in its efforts to secure a seat on the UNSC. Despite the fact that vote went to a third round run-off between Spain and Turkey it always seemed to be a case of Spain falling just short rather then Turkey ever coming close. In fact when it became a straight choice between Turkey and Spain Turkey ended up losing 10 votes.
Although these votes are always done by a secret ballot this would have been a perfect opportunity for the US to announce that is was not supporting Turkey in order to send the message that if Turkey continues to refuse to allow the coalition to use United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik in the fight against ISIL then the coalition will withdraw its support for Turkey.
Further evidence of Turkey's increased isolation emerged yesterday when the US confirmed that over the weekend it had held direct talks with the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) which the US has designated a terrorist organisation at Turkey's request. Basically what has been happening is that the US has been trying to make the war against ISIL go on for as long as possible while it searches for this mysterious moderate Arab opposition to ISIL along with other assorted Unicorns.
Meanwhile the Netherlands have given permission for its citizens to go and fight alongside the Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq if they so wish. The UK has sent the Peshmerga heavy machine guns alongside troops to train them in their use. Germany has been supplying the Kurdish YPG with anti-tank missiles and other advanced weapons and has made clear that it intends to continue doing so regardless of what objections Turkey raises.
Therefore the US appears to have entered into these discussions with representatives of the PKK under severe duress from its NATO allies. As such the discussions are at a very early stage and the US is clearly not yet ready to announce that it will be asking to ask the Kurds to act as the ground forces in the coalition against ISIL. However it does seem that the meeting did provide an opportunity for the PKK to pass of details of ISIL positions in and around Kobane that were then hit by coalition air-strikes in the following days. This however does fall short of the real-time targeting that is required.
The reason why this face to face meeting between the US and representatives of the PKK has been kept so quiet is because Turkey has convinced the European Union (EU) who in turn have convinced the US that the PKK are a Marxist terrorist organisation. As a result I should probably clear up a few mis-conceptions about the PKK.
The main one of these is that the PKK actually only represent around 5% of the Kurds. For example the PKK aren't even the dominant party in Kobane which has always been a Kurdish stronghold. So the PKK and the YPG are most certainly not the same thing although obviously the people who already have para-military experience do hold key positions within the YPG. As such saying that all Kurds are terrorists because of the PKK is just as irrational as saying that all Muslims are terrorists because of ISIL.
Founded in 1978 the PKK are part of the radicalism of the 1970's alongside the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in Northern Ireland, the Red Brigades in Italy and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Palestine. This golden age of international terrorism occurred during the height of the Cold War when there was a stark political choice between being either Capitalist or Communist with no middle ground. As a result all these groups that had non-economic disputes with Capitalist governments would play up their Marxist tendencies in order to form allegiances with each other and gain support. Since then the ANC have gone on to govern South Africa for 20 years and have so far singularly failed to turn it into a Communist nation. Meanwhile the PLO have moved so far away from their Marxist roots that most people have long forgotten that they ever had Marxist roots. As such I think that the allegation that the PKK are Communists is more then a little melodramatic.
In terms of violence the PKK along with the PLO have always sat at the more militant end of the spectrum. However they have always conducted themselves as a rebel army rather than a terrorist group. That is to say that all of the PKK's attacks have been directed against legitimate military targets such as Turkish soldiers and the Turkish security forces such as the police. The PKK have never carried out bombing campaigns against civilian targets and certainly have never shown any interest is carrying out Islamist-style mass casualty attacks. In fact during the 36 years that the PKK have been in existence only 185 civilians have been killed in any of their operations which is an incredibly low collateral damage rate for any military force. So if we are going to refuse to help the Kurds because they are terrorists then there is absolutely no-one in the Syria conflict that the coalition can support and we're going to have to invent a whole new word for what ISIL are.
Despite their increasing international isolation there are no indications that Turkey is going to side with the coalition over ISIL by allowing the coalition to use Incirlik. This is on the verge of becoming a major problem because if Kobane is hardened as a target then everything that ISIL have done up until now indicates that they will simply start going after softer targets instead. These softer targets are likely to be in and around Baghdad in Iraq and ISIL has already started launching waves of suicide attacks in Baghdad's Shia neighbourhoods. If ISIL do switch their focus to Baghdad the threat they pose can easily be contained by the coalition mounting "Operation Northern Watch" style air patrols over the front lines. However before they can do that they need a decision on whether Incirlik is to be used or whether they need to make alternative plans.
In order to plug the gap left by the indecision over Incirlik the UK has decided to deploy armed Reaper drones from a base in Kuwait. Although they lack a substantial punch these Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drones can patrol the skies over Iraq for long periods of time and can take limited action to disrupt ISIL ground operations when the need arises.
On a final note I should point out that the main reason why UK Prime Minister David Cameron is coming out of this fight against ISIL looking rather good while US President Barack Obama is starting to look like a dangerous incompetent is very simple. While Obama seems to be telling his Generals what to do in order to deal with concerns about his Democrat Party's electoral chances Cameron is simply asking his Generals what needs to be done.
16:15 on 17/10/14 (UK date).
Wednesday, 15 October 2014
Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 2, Day 2.
Throughout Tuesday (14/10/14) and today the US-led coalition has continued its intensified bombing of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) positions around the strategically important and besieged city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which sits just 1km (0.6 miles) from Syria's border with Turkey. Adding to the 21 strikes on Monday (13/10/14) through Tuesday the coalition has struck a further 18 targets which destroyed 16 buildings that were being occupied by ISIL and 2 ISIL fighting positions. Essentially what the coalition is trying to do is to destroy all ISIL positions surrounding Kobane.
With their troop staging and re-supply areas on the outside of Kobane thrown into chaos ISIL fighters within the city have been substantially weakened. This has allowed the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who are defending Kobane to start pushing ISIL back street by street. This is obviously a slow and dangerous process that could take many days and is not guaranteed to succeed.
Given that it has almost entirely crippled ISIL's operation within Kobane the obvious question remains of why did it take the coalition close to 3 weeks to start doing this? If this intensified level of air-strikes had started as ISIL began their advance on Kobane there is a very good chance that not only would have ISIL been prevented from entering the city where they have committed numerous beheadings and other unspeakable acts but they would also have been stopped from seizing the territory around the town. The other advantage is that if US President Obama had made it clear from the start that ISIL would not be permitted to advance to the Turkish border in order to provide a pre-text for a Turkish ground invasion of Kurdish territory then negotiations over the use of United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik would be at a much more advanced stage. After all it would have helped make it clear to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he doesn't get to make demands nor is he allowed to exterminate the Kurds.
Despite the increased intensity of the air-strikes and the YPG's advances on the ground the situation in Kobane remains perilous because the city has not been resupplied in more then a week. This means that stocks of vital supplies such as food, ammunition and medical supplies such as bandages and pain medication are running dangerously low. In fact it was several days ago that Kobane ran out of the diesel it needs to operate its fresh water pumps. If this supply problem is not solved soon then the residents of Kobane will still die even if ISIL can be kept at bay. For its part Turkey is still refusing to allow supplies to cross it's border to Kobane although it seems perfectly happy to deport Kurdish refugees across the border straight into ISIL's hands.
So if international pressure including the blocking of Turkey's attempt to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Thursday (16/10/14) fails to encourage Turkey to allow the re-supply of Kobane then the coalition's next step will have to be carrying out air-drops into the rural areas that have been liberated from ISIL.
Yesterday US President Obama hosted a meeting of the coalition at Andrews Military base just outside of Washington, US. Tellingly the Kurds were not invited to this meeting but the Turks were. Despite a lot of hype in the run-up - particularly from the UK - it seems that this meeting was less then earth-shattering. In fact its main purpose seemed to be to provide the members of the coalition with an opportunity to pat each other on the back and congratulate each other on how well the operation was going despite all the evidence to the contrary.
The main problem that came out of the meeting is that the coalition continued to state that; "The root of the struggle [against ISIL] lies in the conditions of the region: Ethnic and religious tensions, exclusionary governance, intolerance, and economic privation."
This position is fundamentally flawed for two main reasons; Firstly it is impossible to understand why the jihadists from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Russia, the UK etc who make up ISIL get to have any say in the governance and running of either Syria or Iraq. Secondly even if your are somehow able to justify ISIL as stakeholders within those societies there is still the problem that no government can find a way to include the views of a group who believe that 75% of the population should be exterminated because they are considered infidels.
As a result while the US may not be prepared to admit it publicly the only way to deal with ISIL is militarily by treating them as an invasion force that first needs to be stopped in its tracks then forced back from the territory it has occupied. Finally their military capacity needs to be degraded and destroyed to the point that they no longer represent a threat.
The other major problem to come out of the coalition meeting is that Obama couldn't even manage to concentrate on the task in hand for the five minutes in which he spoke to reporters afterwards. Instead - as always seems to be the case - Obama seemed desperate to forget about ISIL and talk about Ebola instead.
Finally the US today christened the operation against ISIL as "Operation Inherent Resolve." On one level I'm disappointed because after two and a half months I was starting to think that we'd all agreed to just use my name for it. After all the UK have long been referring to their role in the mission as; "Operation Shader." However you can pretty much predict how future discussions in the White House about ISIL are going to go;
"Mr President we need to talk about Inherent Resolve."
"What's Inherent Resolve?"
"You remember. It's meant to be your response to ISIL."
19:20 on 15/10/14 (UK date).
With their troop staging and re-supply areas on the outside of Kobane thrown into chaos ISIL fighters within the city have been substantially weakened. This has allowed the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who are defending Kobane to start pushing ISIL back street by street. This is obviously a slow and dangerous process that could take many days and is not guaranteed to succeed.
Given that it has almost entirely crippled ISIL's operation within Kobane the obvious question remains of why did it take the coalition close to 3 weeks to start doing this? If this intensified level of air-strikes had started as ISIL began their advance on Kobane there is a very good chance that not only would have ISIL been prevented from entering the city where they have committed numerous beheadings and other unspeakable acts but they would also have been stopped from seizing the territory around the town. The other advantage is that if US President Obama had made it clear from the start that ISIL would not be permitted to advance to the Turkish border in order to provide a pre-text for a Turkish ground invasion of Kurdish territory then negotiations over the use of United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik would be at a much more advanced stage. After all it would have helped make it clear to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he doesn't get to make demands nor is he allowed to exterminate the Kurds.
Despite the increased intensity of the air-strikes and the YPG's advances on the ground the situation in Kobane remains perilous because the city has not been resupplied in more then a week. This means that stocks of vital supplies such as food, ammunition and medical supplies such as bandages and pain medication are running dangerously low. In fact it was several days ago that Kobane ran out of the diesel it needs to operate its fresh water pumps. If this supply problem is not solved soon then the residents of Kobane will still die even if ISIL can be kept at bay. For its part Turkey is still refusing to allow supplies to cross it's border to Kobane although it seems perfectly happy to deport Kurdish refugees across the border straight into ISIL's hands.
So if international pressure including the blocking of Turkey's attempt to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Thursday (16/10/14) fails to encourage Turkey to allow the re-supply of Kobane then the coalition's next step will have to be carrying out air-drops into the rural areas that have been liberated from ISIL.
Yesterday US President Obama hosted a meeting of the coalition at Andrews Military base just outside of Washington, US. Tellingly the Kurds were not invited to this meeting but the Turks were. Despite a lot of hype in the run-up - particularly from the UK - it seems that this meeting was less then earth-shattering. In fact its main purpose seemed to be to provide the members of the coalition with an opportunity to pat each other on the back and congratulate each other on how well the operation was going despite all the evidence to the contrary.
The main problem that came out of the meeting is that the coalition continued to state that; "The root of the struggle [against ISIL] lies in the conditions of the region: Ethnic and religious tensions, exclusionary governance, intolerance, and economic privation."
This position is fundamentally flawed for two main reasons; Firstly it is impossible to understand why the jihadists from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Russia, the UK etc who make up ISIL get to have any say in the governance and running of either Syria or Iraq. Secondly even if your are somehow able to justify ISIL as stakeholders within those societies there is still the problem that no government can find a way to include the views of a group who believe that 75% of the population should be exterminated because they are considered infidels.
As a result while the US may not be prepared to admit it publicly the only way to deal with ISIL is militarily by treating them as an invasion force that first needs to be stopped in its tracks then forced back from the territory it has occupied. Finally their military capacity needs to be degraded and destroyed to the point that they no longer represent a threat.
The other major problem to come out of the coalition meeting is that Obama couldn't even manage to concentrate on the task in hand for the five minutes in which he spoke to reporters afterwards. Instead - as always seems to be the case - Obama seemed desperate to forget about ISIL and talk about Ebola instead.
Finally the US today christened the operation against ISIL as "Operation Inherent Resolve." On one level I'm disappointed because after two and a half months I was starting to think that we'd all agreed to just use my name for it. After all the UK have long been referring to their role in the mission as; "Operation Shader." However you can pretty much predict how future discussions in the White House about ISIL are going to go;
"Mr President we need to talk about Inherent Resolve."
"What's Inherent Resolve?"
"You remember. It's meant to be your response to ISIL."
19:20 on 15/10/14 (UK date).
Prepared to be Thrilled.
In the interests of good housekeeping I should point out that since the start of October I have slowly been getting back to the gym. One of the main things that motivated me to get started again is that the last time I went to the gym was August 8th (8/8/14) - the day US operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) began. As a result I was starting to find it really depressing being given daily reminders of just how unfit I was becoming.
The reason of course that I stopped is that between the stress of the anti-ISIL operation, the war in Gaza and all that exercise I sort of got burned out and ended up getting ill. As a result this time I'm making a conscious effort to not over-do things at least until the increased fitness and stamina kicks in. This means that I do need to take days off because I've discovered that 14 day weeks can be exhausting.
While I'm here though I should point out that local Hong Kong residents have started to break up the mass pro-democracy protests that have been blocking the city for weeks. The protest organisers - who are almost all under 22 - are blaming this on the Chinese government paying Triad gangsters to break up the protests. I should point out then that I went to High School from 1993-1998 in an area which is often the first port of call for immigrants into the UK. So in the run-up to the 1997 handing back of Hong Kong to China there was a large increase in Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong. This led to a mass local panic about Triad gangsters who got blamed for every crime and every bad thing that happened.
As a result I very quickly learnt that "Triad gangster" is simply another way of Britain saying "Chinese person we don't like."
12:20 on 15/10/14 (UK date).
The reason of course that I stopped is that between the stress of the anti-ISIL operation, the war in Gaza and all that exercise I sort of got burned out and ended up getting ill. As a result this time I'm making a conscious effort to not over-do things at least until the increased fitness and stamina kicks in. This means that I do need to take days off because I've discovered that 14 day weeks can be exhausting.
While I'm here though I should point out that local Hong Kong residents have started to break up the mass pro-democracy protests that have been blocking the city for weeks. The protest organisers - who are almost all under 22 - are blaming this on the Chinese government paying Triad gangsters to break up the protests. I should point out then that I went to High School from 1993-1998 in an area which is often the first port of call for immigrants into the UK. So in the run-up to the 1997 handing back of Hong Kong to China there was a large increase in Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong. This led to a mass local panic about Triad gangsters who got blamed for every crime and every bad thing that happened.
As a result I very quickly learnt that "Triad gangster" is simply another way of Britain saying "Chinese person we don't like."
12:20 on 15/10/14 (UK date).
Tuesday, 14 October 2014
Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 2, Day 1.
As I was writing yesterday's post the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) had just succeeded in repelling a fresh attempt by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to seize the northern border crossing that provides the city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab with its only link to the outside world. As a result it looked as though this strategically important city which sits 140km (84 miles) from the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa and just 1km (0.6 miles) from Syria's border from Turkey would stay out of ISIL hands for one more day.
However just as I was going be bed last night rumours were starting to emerge that ISIL had dispatched a senior commander along with 100 fighters who are specially trained and equipped to fight at night to Kobane in order to launch a fresh attempt to seize the northern border crossing. Although that rumour has not been confirmed a convoy of ISIL fighters did attempt to advance on the border crossing from the east only to be ambushed by YPG fighters who destroyed the convoy killing at least 25 ISIL fighters. Amongst the dead is said to be Saddam Jamal - a senior "Emir" within ISIL who is perhaps better known to the outside world as commander of the Syrian Military Council's (SMC) eastern division which is the "moderate opposition" that everybody keeps referring to.
It seems that the YPG were not content to sit back and simply repel ISIL attacks and instead launched a counter-offensive of their own. With limited support from the US-led coalition (I'm still waiting for details of air-strikes) the YPG succeeded in liberating the village of Tall Shair and the hill it stands upon which has been under ISIL control since October 3rd (3/10/14). This is a significant victory for the Kurds because being 4km (2.4 miles) from Kobane the re-capture of the hill puts the west of the city beyond the range of ISIL tank fire. Also by putting a huge hill between Kobane and ISIL positions it makes it extremely difficult for ISIL to fire artillery into the city. Finally it opens up a stretch of open ground which can be used as a drop-zone if Turkey continues to block supplies from reaching Kobane forcing the coalition to conduct air-drops.
Of course before all this happened ISIL announced that they had seized not only the northern border crossing but also the entire city and declared victory over the Kurds. This really serves to underline first just how delusional ISIL actually are and just how important Kobane is to them.
When I compare ISIL to Nazi Germany it is not a casual comparison because both the Nazi Reich and ISIL seem to have this constant need to continue expanding and destroying in order sustain their existence. For example Hitler came to power in 1933 and spent 3 years consolidating the Reich in Germany before moving on to occupy the Rhineland in 1936. In 1938 the Nazis invaded Austria and then made a quick march across western Europe. In 1940 they were stopped at the English Channel so immediately started pressing eastwards towards the Soviet Union. In 1942 the were stopped at Stalingrad prompting them to focus instead on the extermination of the Jews. This wasn't enough to sustain the Reich and eventually it collapsed in on itself. ISIL seem to have the same thirst for destruction so if they can be stopped at Kobane and stopped at Hit in Iraq it is likely that they will then collapse very rapidly.
Despite the success at Tall Shair the battle for Kobane is still far from won because ISIL can still attack from the east and the south. Also by re-claiming the hill the Kurds have actually put extra pressure on themselves because they now not only have to defend the city but the hill and the space between the hill and the west of Kobane.
Turkey of course is continuing to refuse to allow support such as fighters and supplies to cross its border to provide relief to Kobane. It has also emerged that on Sunday (12/10/14) Turkey went much further then simply trying to starve Kobane into defeat by bombing Kurdish positions on the border with Iraq. This means that Turkey is now no longer in violation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014) by simply failing to do everything in it's power by obstructing the coalition's use of Incirlk airbase. Instead Turkey is now actively carrying out military operations in support of ISIL.
On Thursday (16/10/14) Turkey hopes to be elected on to the UNSC. Along with all the examples I noted yesterday this is exactly the sort of thing that can be blocked if Turkey continues to refuse to assist the US-led coalition. In fact Thursday's vote may have to be postponed while the current members of the UNSC meet to decide Turkey's punishment for its flagrant violation of resolution 2170.
16:10 on 14/10/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 18:50 on 14/10/14 (UK date) to add;
It's Tuesday night and I'm back from the pub. Whilst I was there I sampled the J.D Wetherspoon chain's attempt at the famous "Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich." The nicest thing I can say about this is that they served the cheese on the side essentially making it a Ribeye steak sub. Therefore I suppose I could treat you to a lengthy rant about the obsession with putting cheese on all food that I have been saving up for quite some time. Seriously the other day I tried to order a southern fried chicken burger which only led to a long argument about how only a mad man would put cheese on that.
Fortunately though US Central Command (CENTCOM) have got around to publishing details of the air-strikes they carried out in and around Kobane overnight. Basically they carried out 21 strikes - the equivalent of a single B-1 Lancer operating at 25% of capacity - against pretty much ever ISIL target they had identified. The destruction of 3 ISIL compounds, 7 troops staging areas and a single ISIL ammunition store were amongst the highlights.
The fact that this significant increase in the volume of strikes occurred at the same time as the YPG were able to seize Tall Shair hill has led to speculation that the US-led coalition is now operating alongside the Kurds. Sadly I don't think this is the case nor do I think this was the US sending a strong message to Turkey over its bombing of Kurdish positions on Sunday. Instead the sad fact of the matter is that US President Obama's only objective for this operation remains to avoid negative press coverage ahead of the US mid-term elections. With the Twitter hashtag #Airdrops2Kobane trending most of Sunday and the Obama's leadership receiving negative reviews (on this blog at least) on Monday I think that Monday night's small increase in air-strikes was Obama trying to show that he is taking the situation seriously.
The Kurds then simply took advantage because fighting for their lives they don't any other choice.
However just as I was going be bed last night rumours were starting to emerge that ISIL had dispatched a senior commander along with 100 fighters who are specially trained and equipped to fight at night to Kobane in order to launch a fresh attempt to seize the northern border crossing. Although that rumour has not been confirmed a convoy of ISIL fighters did attempt to advance on the border crossing from the east only to be ambushed by YPG fighters who destroyed the convoy killing at least 25 ISIL fighters. Amongst the dead is said to be Saddam Jamal - a senior "Emir" within ISIL who is perhaps better known to the outside world as commander of the Syrian Military Council's (SMC) eastern division which is the "moderate opposition" that everybody keeps referring to.
It seems that the YPG were not content to sit back and simply repel ISIL attacks and instead launched a counter-offensive of their own. With limited support from the US-led coalition (I'm still waiting for details of air-strikes) the YPG succeeded in liberating the village of Tall Shair and the hill it stands upon which has been under ISIL control since October 3rd (3/10/14). This is a significant victory for the Kurds because being 4km (2.4 miles) from Kobane the re-capture of the hill puts the west of the city beyond the range of ISIL tank fire. Also by putting a huge hill between Kobane and ISIL positions it makes it extremely difficult for ISIL to fire artillery into the city. Finally it opens up a stretch of open ground which can be used as a drop-zone if Turkey continues to block supplies from reaching Kobane forcing the coalition to conduct air-drops.
Of course before all this happened ISIL announced that they had seized not only the northern border crossing but also the entire city and declared victory over the Kurds. This really serves to underline first just how delusional ISIL actually are and just how important Kobane is to them.
When I compare ISIL to Nazi Germany it is not a casual comparison because both the Nazi Reich and ISIL seem to have this constant need to continue expanding and destroying in order sustain their existence. For example Hitler came to power in 1933 and spent 3 years consolidating the Reich in Germany before moving on to occupy the Rhineland in 1936. In 1938 the Nazis invaded Austria and then made a quick march across western Europe. In 1940 they were stopped at the English Channel so immediately started pressing eastwards towards the Soviet Union. In 1942 the were stopped at Stalingrad prompting them to focus instead on the extermination of the Jews. This wasn't enough to sustain the Reich and eventually it collapsed in on itself. ISIL seem to have the same thirst for destruction so if they can be stopped at Kobane and stopped at Hit in Iraq it is likely that they will then collapse very rapidly.
Despite the success at Tall Shair the battle for Kobane is still far from won because ISIL can still attack from the east and the south. Also by re-claiming the hill the Kurds have actually put extra pressure on themselves because they now not only have to defend the city but the hill and the space between the hill and the west of Kobane.
Turkey of course is continuing to refuse to allow support such as fighters and supplies to cross its border to provide relief to Kobane. It has also emerged that on Sunday (12/10/14) Turkey went much further then simply trying to starve Kobane into defeat by bombing Kurdish positions on the border with Iraq. This means that Turkey is now no longer in violation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014) by simply failing to do everything in it's power by obstructing the coalition's use of Incirlk airbase. Instead Turkey is now actively carrying out military operations in support of ISIL.
On Thursday (16/10/14) Turkey hopes to be elected on to the UNSC. Along with all the examples I noted yesterday this is exactly the sort of thing that can be blocked if Turkey continues to refuse to assist the US-led coalition. In fact Thursday's vote may have to be postponed while the current members of the UNSC meet to decide Turkey's punishment for its flagrant violation of resolution 2170.
16:10 on 14/10/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 18:50 on 14/10/14 (UK date) to add;
It's Tuesday night and I'm back from the pub. Whilst I was there I sampled the J.D Wetherspoon chain's attempt at the famous "Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich." The nicest thing I can say about this is that they served the cheese on the side essentially making it a Ribeye steak sub. Therefore I suppose I could treat you to a lengthy rant about the obsession with putting cheese on all food that I have been saving up for quite some time. Seriously the other day I tried to order a southern fried chicken burger which only led to a long argument about how only a mad man would put cheese on that.
Fortunately though US Central Command (CENTCOM) have got around to publishing details of the air-strikes they carried out in and around Kobane overnight. Basically they carried out 21 strikes - the equivalent of a single B-1 Lancer operating at 25% of capacity - against pretty much ever ISIL target they had identified. The destruction of 3 ISIL compounds, 7 troops staging areas and a single ISIL ammunition store were amongst the highlights.
The fact that this significant increase in the volume of strikes occurred at the same time as the YPG were able to seize Tall Shair hill has led to speculation that the US-led coalition is now operating alongside the Kurds. Sadly I don't think this is the case nor do I think this was the US sending a strong message to Turkey over its bombing of Kurdish positions on Sunday. Instead the sad fact of the matter is that US President Obama's only objective for this operation remains to avoid negative press coverage ahead of the US mid-term elections. With the Twitter hashtag #Airdrops2Kobane trending most of Sunday and the Obama's leadership receiving negative reviews (on this blog at least) on Monday I think that Monday night's small increase in air-strikes was Obama trying to show that he is taking the situation seriously.
The Kurds then simply took advantage because fighting for their lives they don't any other choice.
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