Tuesday (4/11/14) marked the Day of Ashura. To extreme Sunni Muslims this is a day of mourning over the Egyptian Pharaoh's decision to free Jewish slaves. To Shia Muslims it commemorates the death of Husayn ibn-Ali - the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib (the first Shia Caliph) who was the cousin and brother-in-law of the Prophet Mohamed - at the hands of Yazid I (the first Sunni Caliph) at the Battle of Karbala in 680AD. It was this event that really cemented the division between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
As Karbala sits around 100km (62 miles) south-west of Iraq's capital Baghdad people across Iraq, Syria and the wider middle-east spent the day really on edge waiting to see what horrific atrocities the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) would commit against Shia pilgrims who were marking the event. Either through increased security, a lack of will on ISIL's part or combination of the two no such attack(s) took. Adding to the tense stand-off of Ashura Tuesday also saw the US mid-term elections which with the US leading the anti-ISIL coalition were closely watched. As a result not much has actually happened in the last couple of days and many of my Kurdish contacts in particular seemed to go into hiding for the duration of the election.
However a couple of relatively quiet days in Iraq and Syria most certainly does not mean that the Battle of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab has suddenly ended. On Tuesday and Wednesday there was sporadic fighting between the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and ISIL on both the southern and eastern fronts. On both of these fronts the YPG have seemed to hold the upper hand pushing ISIL back street-by-street and house-by-house. However I need to stress that despite ISIL fighters being killed and equipment being captured progress is slow and ISIL are hardly in full retreat. In fact ISIL seemed to have switched their attention to the western section of the city and the area between Kobane and Tall Shair hill. This large push by ISIL began on Tuesday night and by all accounts seems to be continuing as I write. The YPG seem to be holding out well with no notable loss of territory and at least 15 ISIL fighters being killed in the fighting on that front.
Sadly I've not heard any further news on rumours of a second Peshmerga supply convoy travelling from Arbil in Iraq to Kobane via Turkey. Although the YPG do now seem able to bring in small amounts of supplies from their other positions in northern Syria the failure to secure a supply corridor across Turkey is still a significant problem. Firstly it represents the quickest and easiest way to make sure that ISIL can be defeated at Kobane and the coalition really needs to start imposing defeats on ISIL. Secondly it would make it clear to Turkey that the fall of Kobane is not up for negotiation and the coalition is committed to defeating ISIL not engaging in endless discussions about overthrowing the Syrian government.
That second priority makes the US' actions overnight even harder to explain. Last night US aircraft carried out five strikes on targets in and around the Bab al-Hawa which is around 45km (27 miles) west of Aleppo city on the border with Turkey. The US is claiming that these strikes were aimed at members of the mysterious "Khorasan Group." However as I explained when this 'group' was first targeted during the first wave or air-strikes on Syria there is no such organisation as the Khorasan Group. There is though a loose grouping of effectively Al Qaeda special forces trainers who have travelled to Syria to help various rebel groups fight ISIL. Quite why US intelligence decided to group these individuals together and name them after a province in north-eastern Iran is still a bit of a mystery to everyone.
What the US actually did last night was attack an Islamist group known as the Free Men of the Levant (FML) - Ahrar al-Sham in Arabic - who are part of the Islamic Front (IF) grouping. This is a problem because the coalition is only bombing in Syria under the authority of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) specifically resolution 2170 (2014). That only gives authority for operations against ISIL and the Al Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front (ANF). As they clearly have a similar agenda to ISIL I am not overly concerned about FML being attacked. However if the coalition starts attacking groups that it does not have authority to do so where and when will it stop?
Therefore I think that the real reason behind the strike on FML was the US trying to pledge its allegiance to the Saudi, Qatari and Turkish cause despite the mid-term election result. After all the Syrian government did recently kill most of FML's Saudi appointed leadership during fighting in Aleppo city. The Syrian government is predominately Shia and Iran is the world's largest Shia nation - hence all the random references to Khorasan.
Elsewhere in the coalition the UK has announced that it is sending further ground troops to Iraqi Kurdistan to train the Peshmerga. As such I should point out that this doesn't exceed the authority given by the UK Parliament because these aren't combat troops and UK troops frequently get sent all over the world to train people. Beyond the obvious need to train up the Peshmerga this move seems intended to remind the US that the Kurds are considered the only option for a ground force and the coalition is meant to be fighting ISIL primarily in Iraq.
After all if the US air-strikes that began in Arbil continue their westward march before long this will end up as a war against Greece rather than ISIL.
20:45 on 6/11/14 (UK date).
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