Operation Featherweight: Month 5, Week 3, Day 1.

As it approaches its 100th day the Battle for Kobane/Ayn al-Arab is still stuck firmly in an attrition phase. In the week since my last post the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) have continued to mount patrols on all fronts periodically engaging with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters killing 11, capturing small amounts of weapons and ammunition and liberating the occasional fighting position.

On Thursday (18/12/14) ISIL fighters inside Kobane attempted to launch a fresh assault against the YPG on the southern front. This assault was led by two Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED's/truck bombs) and backed by a tank. However after a night of fighting the YPG were able to repel this attack resulting in the deaths of 26 ISIL fighters and the capture of large amounts of ammunition. Sadly 1 YPG fighter lost his life in this battle.

In response to the ISIL assault the YPG launched their own offensive on Friday (19/12/14) against ISIL positions at the Yarmouk School from where Thursday's attack was launched. Although as far as I can tell this operation is still going on as the YPG consolidate their position it appears to have been a complete success with the YPG liberating ISIL positions in and around the school and pushing forward to the edge of the 48 neighbourhood which is the ISIL stronghold on the southern front. During this operation 21 ISIL fighters were killed including Abu Zahra who is the commander of the Chechen Jundullah Brigade. No YPG fighters lost their lives in the operation.

The YPG have also mounted operations against ISIL positions close to the cultural centre on the eastern front and conducted commando-style raids against ISIL in the villages surrounding Kobane - most notably Ko Ali. Crucially they have also manged to maintain control of the villages for Tarmik to the south-west and Helinj and Jalabiyah to the south-east cutting ISIL supply lines to Aleppo City and Raqqa respectively.

At this point I should mention that despite being a desert country in the depths of winter the weather in Syria can actually be both very wet and very cold. Therefore the first battle that everybody people is fighting at this time is the battle to stay warm and dry meaning that there is often a drop in the tempo of fighting. However the deteriorating conditions have spurred people into action in neighbouring Iraq.

You may remember that back in August 2014 ISIL overran dozens of Kurdish villages at the foot of the Shingal/Sinjar mountains. This forced 50-60,000 ethnic Kurds of the Yazidi religion to escape onto the mountain where they faced dehydration and starvation or face certain death at the hands of ISIL. After several weeks the pressure from the press corp became too much for US President Barack Obama to bear so he belatedly launched a military operation to prevent a genocide. After a month of relentless pressure Obama went on to expand the operation to allow it to go on the offensive against ISIL.

Sadly Obama then rapidly lost his nerve, lost interest and randomly started carrying out symbolic attacks against mysterious groups like the Khorasan Group in Syria instead.

On Wednesday (17/12/14) the US-led coalition finally got it together with the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi military to break the siege in Sinjar.

At dawn on Wednesday some 8,000 Peshmerga who had assembled at Zumar which is just north of Mosul Dam around 50km (30 miles) north-west of Mosul City advanced west. By the following day they had liberated all the villages and cleared all the ISIL positions within the 700km^2 (420m^2) between Zumar and the city of Shingal/Sinjar. During these two day the Peshmerga were assisted by 98 coalition air-strikes which acting in a close air-support role destroyed more then 100 ISIL targets primarily made up of check-points, fighting positions and ground units. 

On Friday (19/12/14) Peshmergas from Rabia which sits on the Syria border around 125km (75 miles) north-west of Mosul pushed north-east liberating the are between Sinjar and the border from ISIL. At the same time the YPG based in Syria along with Yazidi militia pushed up the mountains from Syria to link up with the advancing Peshmerga. This now establishes a wide corridor stretching all the way from the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Arbil to the edge of the YPG's Cizire canton at Serekanyie some 350km (210 miles) away. Unfortunately in the face of the Kurdish advances a large proportion of ISIL fighters have fled with weapons and equipment both into Syria and Mosul which ISIL's stronghold in Iraq. As the US-led coalition made no attempt to cut them down as they fled it is likely that they will now re-group in both areas.

Despite this tremendous success by the Kurds the operation suffered a major setback on Monday (15/12/14) when the Al Nusra Front (ANF) backed by the Free Men of Levant (FML) and other members of the Islamist Front (IF) grouping seized the Hamidiyeh and Wadi al-Deif bases in Idlib province from the Syrian government capturing tanks, armoured vehicles and lots of advanced weapons in the process.  Although a loss by the Syrian government isn't really a concern of the coalition a gain by the Al Qaeda allied ANF should be because they are covered by the same United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution as ISIL and the fact that they have begun to work with the IF grouping suggests they are getting closer to getting over their ideological differences and allying themselves with ISIL.

Yesterday the US confirmed that 1,300 extra ground troops will be sent to Iraq in January. The timing of the announcement couldn't have come at a worse time because this week the US ground troops who are definitely not combat troops had their first taste of combat. Essentially a small group of around 100 US troops had been deployed to the Ain Al-Assad base which is around 90km (54 miles) west of Ramadi in Anbar province and around 200km (120 miles) west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. On Sunday (14/12/14) ISIL attacked the base forcing the US-troops to open fire and call in air-strikes to repel the attack. It seems the attack was successfully repelled in just over two hours although the US is remaining so tight-lipped about possible casualties they still refusing to even acknowledge that the event took place.

17:55 on 21/12/14 (UK date).