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).
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