Operation Featherweight: Month 4, Week 3, Day 4.

You may have noticed that over the past week or so my updates on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have become less frequent. In part this has been because I've had to deal with other issues. For example US President Barack Obama's controversial decision to take executive action on immigration will have a huge impact on the political climate in which decisions about how the US-led coalition against ISIL operates will be taken.

However it is mainly because the tempo of the operation has slowed to the point where I'm struggling to find enough to talk about in daily updates. In Iraq we are still largely waiting for the coalition to decide that it wants to go and fight ISIL. In the Battle of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab on Syria's northern border with Turkey which has dominated much of the fighting in recent weeks the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) have proved themselves to be highly effective in both stopping ISIL's attempts to capture the city and slowing their operations in general.

Between Wednesday (19/11/14) and Saturday (22/11/14) operations within Kobane were largely limited to the YPG mounting patrols on the eastern and southern fronts and occasionally engaging the enemy. During this time the YPG succeeded in re-capturing a single position from ISIL in the Sukul Hal area and 22 ISIL fighters were killed across both fronts. A single YPG fighter was killed on Saturday.

The YPG have continued to hold the villages of Helinj and Jalabiyah which sit to the south-east of Kobane itself on the main road between the city and the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa which is around 140km (84 miles) to the south-east of Kobane. The YPG's control of this road has substantially reduced ISIL's ability to bring reinforcement and supplies to the Kobane battle but it has not stopped them completely because there are other roads and ISIL continue to occupy other positions around Kobane.

On Saturday it appeared as though ISIL were assembling their forces for a fresh assault on Kobane and that was accompanied by a significant increase in the daily shelling of the city which is now coming primarily from the west of Kobane. Although this shelling is coming from beyond the villages of Minaz, Gire Iza and Mazra which sit around 5km (3 miles) away the Peshmerga artillery units that have been seconded to the YPG responded in kind. Fortunately as I write there is no evidence that a new ISIL offensive has begun or is even probable.

One thing that may have discouraged a fresh offensive by ISIL is that on Sunday (23/11/14) the YPG launched a big operation of their own in the Sukul Hal area on the eastern front. This operation was a success which saw the YPG re-gain more territory in the area whilst killing 32 ISIL fighters and seizing significant amounts of weapons and ammunition. On the southern front the YPG also attacked an ISIL patrol destroying vehicles and killing 7 ISIL fighters. Also on Sunday the YPG moved to expand their positions around Helinj and Jalabiyah to include the village of Sheikh Choban further restricting ISIL's access to Kobane. During this operation 3 ISIL fighters were killed.

Although at this stage the attrition rate clearly favours the YPG over ISIL food, ammunition and medical supplies are being used up meaning that I will not feel totally confident of a YPG victory until a regular supply corridor to Kobane can be established through Turkey. With it beginning to look as though the Battle of Kobane might be starting to come to an end attention has started to shift to the YPG's other bastion of defence against ISIL in Syria - the city of Serekaniye/Ras al-Ayn.

Serekaniye sits on Syria's northern border with Turkey around 175km (105 miles) east of Kobane and around 240km (144 miles) west of the Syria/Iraq border town of Khanik. As like Kobane Serekaniye directly borders Turkey it would also provide ISIL with a smuggling route across Turkey but sitting around 160km (96 miles) north-east of Raqqa it has no value for ISIL in terms of getting supplies to and from their positions in and around Aleppo City which is around 200km (120 miles) west of Raqqa. However if it becomes increasingly clear that Kobane will not fall it is possible that ISIL will instead turn their attentions to Serekaniye in an effort to kill Kurds in revenge and partly because that is just what ISIL does.

At the moment the YPG are doing a highly effective job of keeping ISIL away from Serekaniye itself and actually seem to be pushing ISIL back further into the villages amid frequent clashes. However if ISIL turn their attention fully to Serekaniye the YPG fighters there could find themselves overwhelmed although they've always been in a stronger position there than in Kobane. This risk of course makes it even more vital that a supply corridor across Turkey is established because it can then be used to supply both Kobane and Serekaniye creating the buffer-zone that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been demanding for months.

In terms of Turkey stepping up and joining the anti-ISIL coalition either by allowing coalition aircraft to fly from Incirlik airbase, establishing a supply corridor or simply stemming the flow of ISIL recruits passing through the nation it seems that there is currently little prospect of any progress. Over the weekend US Vice-President Joe Biden visited Turkey for two days of talks with Erdogan about the fight against ISIL. Despite it emerging that 3 months ago Turkey was given permission to train (read; "spy on") Peshmerga fighters in Iraq there was no announcement or indication  that Turkey will be taking any steps or allowing the coalition to take any steps to fight ISIL.

Following that weekend of meetings between the US and Turkey it has today been announced that US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel has stepped down from the post as part of what is being described as "a mutual decision." Although I didn't see the resignation itself coming it has been clear that tension between the Department of Defence and the White House has been building ever since the anti-ISIL operation begun. As such what I suspect has happened is that Hagel, speaking on behalf of the US military, has been telling Obama and his National Security Council (NSC) what needs to be done to defeat ISIL and Obama has really not liked the answers he has been given.

Therefore Hagel has either got sick and tired of being ignored and walked away or Obama has fired him in the hope of replacing him with someone who will give the answers that Obama wants to hear. This is obviously evidence of a very serious split at the heart of the US government and one that hints at Obama being gripped by the type of megalomania that led him to recently claim that he has a telepathic link with the US voters.

Even without Turkey granting permission for the coalition to use United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirlik there are still substantial steps that the coalition could take on its own to improve its effectiveness in fighting ISIL. The main one of these would be to establish a centralised command structure with a sole overall commander and coalition members being represented by senior officers. After all even if they are being forced to operate from small bases across the region their efforts can be made more effective through a central, joined up strategy.

The coalition came close to setting up this type of command cell on November 12th (12/11/14) when the US hosted a 10 day planning conference at MacDill USAF base in Florida, US. It was during this conference that the French/British plan to use close air-support to allow the Peshmerga to liberate the town of Kharbaroot was put into action last week. Sadly that conference came to an end of Friday (21/11/14) and presumably all the coalition nations are back to randomly doing their own thing.


17:55 on 24/11/14 (UK date).

Edited around 20:10 on 24/11/14 (UK date) to add;

Within Iraqi itself the Iraqi Army backed by Shia militias have continued to build on their success in liberating the towns of Saadiya and Jalula in Diyla province which were re-taken at the same time the Peshmerga liberated Kharbaroot. Over the weekend they have pushed out further to clear ISIL fighters from the surrounding areas. As Diyla is not of major significance to ISIL and its forces there are light this operation has primarily been undertaken because it needs to be done and it represents a relatively soft target for the Iraqi Army.

However the operation took place as talks in Vienna aimed at ending Iran's civilian nuclear program were reaching a climax and Diyla province borders Iran. This has led to some people to speculate on the fact that Obama seems to be delaying fighting ISIL because he continues to view them not as an enemy but as an ally helping to exert pressure on Iran. This is of course extremely dangerous behaviour that further underlines the fact of how little Obama understands middle-eastern politics. After all of the 6 nations negotiating with Iran the US appears to be the only one seeking a concrete agreement on what even Israel concedes is an existential issue.

Despite their gains in Diyla province the Iraqi Army suffered a set-back in the city of Ramadi which sits 100km (60 miles) to the west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad in Anbar province. You may remember that at the end of September the Iraqi Army was poised to liberate Ramadi which was around 90% held by ISIL only for coalition air-support to disappear as the US decided to bomb targets in Syria instead. On Friday ISIL launched an operation which succeeded in taking control of one of the remaining districts that had been under government control giving them possession of around 95% of Ramadi.

In response to ISIL even greater control over Ramadi the Iraqi government has pledged that more heavy weapons and air-support will be dispatched to Anbar province in order to prevent it falling fully under ISIL control. The last part of that pledge seemed to be a direct reference to the fact that despite the limited air-strikes they are carrying out and all the money they are spending the US-led coalition is still very far away from providing the required level of support to those who are fighting ISIL on the ground.

20:45 on 24/11/14 (UK date).