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).