Operation Featherweight: Month 6, Week 3, Day 7.

Since the beginning of the January the middle-east region has been blanketed with snow and ice. This sudden cold snap is as about as rare as hell freezing over. In Gaza, Palestine at least 3 people froze to death.

In Saudi Arabia one of the nation's top Islamic clerics introduced a ban on building snowmen, snow-women, snow-dogs, snow-cats etc. That is because not only does their interpretation of Islam ban any offensive cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed it also bans any artistic representation of anything deemed to have a soul. Needless to say there is something of a shortage of Saudi doctors and nurses.

In Syria and Iraq though this extreme weather has almost had a positive effect with the conflict being almost literally frozen in most areas. So for example on Tuesday January 7th (7/1/15) only 7 people were killed in all of Syria with all of those deaths occurring in Kobane/Ayn al-Arab. This is the lowest death toll seen in the country since the Sunni-Arab insurgency began back in the spring of 2011. Since the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) took over much of neighbouring Iraq in August 2014 the death toll in Syria alone has averaged at least 150 per day.

Despite this drop off in the intensity fighting has continued and it has been almost a month since my last update. Therefore you'll excuse me if I skimp on some of the detail while I try to mention the main developments.

In Kobane the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) have continued the necessarily slow process of mounting patrols and liberating the city from ISIL control house-by-house, street-by-street. Since my last post they have succeeded in liberating around half of the 48 neighbourhood as well as the cities water supply which sits on the eastern outskirts. From there they have been able to move to the foot of Mishtenur Hill cutting off ISIL fighters in the south-east of Kobane off from ISIL fighters on the hill. Prior to those gains I would have estimated that ISIL were in control of 25-30% of Kobane but that has now fallen to around 15-20%. However unlike ISIL the YPG are happy to cautiously downplay the extent of their gains.

Knowing that they are now clinging onto Kobane by their fingertips on Thursday (15/1/15) and Friday (16/1/15) ISIL launched a series of Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) attacks on YPG positions around the main street running through the 48 neighbourhood which has become the de facto front-line. These were intended to blunt the YPG advances and although they failed in capturing any territory 15 YPG fighters were killed in what was a significant loss to the YPG.

Today it has emerged that the YPG have succeeded in liberating Mishtenur Hill. This is a substantial gain for them because it not only denies ISIL a position from which is can fire artillery into Kobane it also provides the YPG with a position from which it can fire artillery onto either ISIL positions in Kobane or ISIL positions between the hill and the YPG controlled villages of Helinj and Jalabiyah to the south-east along the main road to Raqqa.

At the time of my last update Kurdish Peshmerga forces across the border in Iraq had just carried out a successful operation liberating some 700km^2 (420m^2) of territory between the Shingal/Sinjar Mountains and the Iraqi Kurdish capital or Arbil that had been occupied by ISIL since August 2014. They have since been able to hold onto that territory and liberate more territory around Gwer which sits to the south-west of Arbil. ISIL did not take the loss of territory around Gwer in good grace so January 10th (10/1/15) they launched sort of commando-style amphibious raid along the Zab River. Primarily being a harassment attack this raid never seriously threatened the Kurds control of the area but it did succeed in killing 26 Peshmerga fighters. These are obviously fighters that now cannot be deployed elsewhere in the fight against ISIL.

Across the rest of Iraq the situation has remained largely unchanged with the US continuing to use the training of the Iraqi army as an excuse to avoid forcing ISIL from the territory it has occupied. However the US has finally been forced to admit what everybody has known for months - the 5,000 US troops that have been sent to Iraq as part of the training mission have been forced into a combat role. In a low key announcement on January 5th (5/1/15) the Pentagon announced that troops stationed at the al-Asad airbase and Besmaya just outside Baghdad and at a base near Arbil were coming under frequent, almost daily attack from ISIL. Obviously with the US troops in question being elite Reconnaissance Marines and Green Berets this hasn't been much of a fight but if US President Obama continues to increase the number of US troops in Iraq you can't help but feel that over time US combat deaths are going to become inevitable.

As the US-led coalition has been keen to highlight through its largely symbolic bombing of the Free Men of the Levant (FML) who are part of the Islamic Front (IF) grouping there has been a growing concern that Syrian government forces would soon liberate the City of Aleppo from the Sunni-Arab insurgents including the Free Syrian Army (FSA) grouping, the IF grouping along with ISIL and the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF). Therefore the United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has been pressing for the Syrian government to call a truce in Aleppo to save the insurgents from defeat. That truce came into force on Friday (16/1/15). 

Unfortunately since then the Syrian government has used the truce to focus its attention on attacking YPG positions close to Heske/Al-Haskah close to Syria's border with Iraq. So far 7 YPG fighters have been killed and numerous civilians have been injured. This has clearly been done because the Syrian government view the YPG as the most viable opposition fighting force in Syria and despite all the rumours from the Sunni-Arabs about the Kurds being allied with the Syrian government the Syrian government intends to reclaim all of its territory including the Kurdish cantons.

To me the truce in Aleppo let alone the attacks on the Kurds seems like a mistake by the Syrian government. That is because despite the recent attacks in Paris, France by Sunni-Arab insurgents linked to the Syria conflict the US announced on Friday (16/1/15) that it intends to begin training and arming up to 5,000 Sunni-Arab insurgents in Turkey in March 2015. The Aleppo truce will obviously aid with that training by giving the insurgents time to re-group and strengthen themselves. 

The Syrian government's calculation seems to been that as has happened in the past the supposedly moderate opposition will then ally themselves with ISIL which will force the anti-ISIL coalition to destroy them on the Syrian government's behalf. There is some evidence that ISIL are beginning to position themselves for an allegiance with both ANF and the IF and FSA groupings with the release yesterday of some 200 Yazidi hostage. After all it is their extreme brutality that has led to ISIL being isolated from the other Sunni-Arab groups including ANF.

Yesterday Israel carried out an air-strike against Hezbollah fighters and Iranian military trainers who are seconded to the Syrian government in the Syrian Golan Heights. What appears to have happened is that US intelligence informed Israel that these troops were planning an attack against Israel so Israel dispatched a helicopter gunship to carry out reconnaissance. For reasons that Israel will have to examine in detail that helicopter gunship decided to engage the target. 

It seems that the US' motivation for giving Israel this tip-off was to provoke a confrontation between Israel and the Syrian government which would help manufacture support for the US Congress' insane plan to increase sanctions on Syria's ally Iran. It would of course also distract the Syrian government allowing it to be defeated by the Sunni-Arab insurgents. Then once the insurgents had overthrown the Syrian government they would be forced to attack Israel in order to prove their anti-Semitic credentials forcing Israel into a big war. As it is unlikely that Israel would pussyfoot around the insurgents in the same way that Obama has there may be some Zionists looking forward to this war as an opportunity to grab even more land. However as I've said on numerous occasions I seriously doubt whether many members of US intelligence could point to the middle-east on a map.

On Christmas Eve (24/12/14) the US-led coalition lost its first aircraft of the campaign when a Jordanian F-16 crashed near Raqqa. The pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeh survived the crash but has since been taken hostage by ISIL who have asking its supporters to think up the most creative way to murder him. ISIL have claimed that they shot down the aircraft but this has been denied and strikes me as extremely unlikely. The type of Man Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS) that ISIL have access to are only really effective against slow moving targets flying below 3.6km (12,000ft). The tactic behind the laser-guided weapons used on F16's is that in order to avoid the threat of anti-aircraft fire they can be deployed at very high speeds from a very high altitude before being guided onto their targets. Therefore unless al-Kassasbeh was doing something incredibly stupid it is far more likely that his aircraft suffered a mechanical failure. After all much like your car the more time you spend operating an aircraft the more likely it is that something will break or fall off.

It must be said though that this type of situation is exactly why I and even the US military highlighted the importance of forcing ISIL from Iraq where downed pilots can be recovered before launching operations over Syria from where downed pilots cannot be recovered.

17:15 on 19/1/15 (UK date).

Edited at around 15:30 on 20/1/15 (UK date) to add;

Overnight ISIL released another short video entitled; "A Message to the Government and People of Japan." The video which is a little under two minutes long begins with media coverage of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announcing a multi-billion dollar aid package to the middle-east to combat extremism. This includes USD200m in non-military aid specifically to combat ISIL. The video then cuts to the so-called "Jihadi John" standing between Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Jihadi John declares that it will cost Japan USD100m to save the life of each hostage and the Japanese people have 72 hours to pressure their government into doing as ISIL demands.

I should start by pointing out that ISIL clearly have no intention of any ransom being paid and will kill the hostages regardless. So rather then being a legitimate ransom demand this video is simply a desperate plea for attention from ISIL.

Prior to Christmas ISIL lost control of much of Iraqi Kurdistan. All that has happened since then is that ISIL have lost control of more of Kobane and even more of Iraqi Kurdistan around Gwer. In the meantime the world's attention has been focused on the Paris attacks which have been blamed on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Although AQAP are more a part of ISIL then of Al Qaeda they don't use the company brand name. As a result ISIL have released this video to get the attention back on them. The reason that Japan has been targeted seems simply to a be result of ISIL running out of hostages of other nationalities. For example I expect they intend to use Moaz al-Kassasbeh for a long and nasty game to try and break Jordan away from the coalition while their sole remaining US hostage is a woman. Due to ISIL's own odd rules they cannot show the image of a woman's face in a video making female hostages unsuitable for this type of snuff film.

What I find interesting about this video which was likely filmed on Thursday (15/1/15) or Friday (16/1/15) of last week is that it reaffirms ISIL's commitment to killing hostages. This directly contradicts the decision on Sunday (18/1/15) to release some 200+ Yazidi hostages. Although this is not the sort of thing that I'm happy to go into a lot of detail about it seems likely that the Yazidi hostages were released because ISIL in Gwer were no-longer capable of keeping them hostage. However on previous occasions ISIL have simply killed hostages they no longer have a use for. As such this rare example of humanity seems like an attempt by ISIL commanders in Gwer to move away from the central ISIL leadership in the hope of forming an alliance with the more moderate Sunni-Arab insurgent groups the US intends to train and arm. 

This creates a very real risk that the coalition will not end the war by destroying ISIL but instead the war will continue only with 'Islamic State (IS)' re-branded as 'Islamic Front (IF).' Sadly though I've long suspected that's been Obama's plan all along because somewhere along the line he seems to have forgotten that the Al-Sauds are there to do the west's bidding, not the other way around.