Operation Featherweight: Month 7, Week 1, Day 4.

In a rare moment of clarity on Saturday (31/1/15) the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) confirmed that they had been defeated in the Battle of Kobane. Despite their victory the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have continued their work to liberate the area outside of Kobane which is known as the "Kobane Canton."

In the past 7 days the YPG have succeeded in liberating 19 villages in the canton with the most recent fighting being focused on the village of Idiq which sits around 7km (4.2 miles) to the south of Kobane city along the Aleppo road. For the most part though these liberations have been generally peaceful with ISIL fighters largely fleeing their positions.

With ISIL admitting defeat in Kobane they instead seem to have turned their attention to the Iraqi city of Kirkuk which sits around 236km (141 miles) north of Baghdad and around 130km (78 miles) south-west of the Iraqi Kurdish capital or Arbil. On Friday (30/1/15) ISIL launched a surprise attack on the town of Maktab Khalid which sits around 20km (12 miles) to the south-west of Kirkuk itself. At around the same time a small group of ISIL fighters attacked and occupied an abandoned hotel in the centre of Kirkuk.

Having been taken by surprise Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew from Maktab Khalid after sustaining casualties including Brigadier General Shirko Fateh who was the senior Peshmerga commander in the area. By days end though the Peshmerga had re-captured the hotel from the ISIL fighters who must have been on a suicide mission. On Saturday ISIL over-ran a small oil processing facility at Khabbaz which sits on the northern outskirts of Kirkuk. The 15 members of staff at the facility remain missing.

ISIL supporters will of course try to point to the attacks on Kirkuk as evidence that despite the defeat at Kobane the group is still in the ascendancy. However the attacks on Kirkuk are actually further evidence of ISIL's extreme vulnerability. Under intense pressure the US-led coalition was recently forced to provide close air-support to the Peshmerga as they mounted an operation in and around the city of Mosul which sits around 83km (50 miles) west of Arbil and  has become ISIL's de facto capital in Iraq. By the Saturday (24/1/15) that operation had succeeded in liberating the town of Tal Afar which sits on the main supply route between Mosul and ISIL's heartland in Syria. Although it will require careful planning and preparation the liberation of Tal Afar leaves the Iraqi and Kurdish forces poised to launch an operation to liberate Mosul in the coming weeks if not days although the US is still trying to block such an operation.

Therefore the attack on Kirkuk seems to be a harassment type operation intended as a desperate attempt by ISIL to disrupt preparations for the liberation of Mosul. Kirkuk is a prime target for this type of operations because despite its majority Kurdish population the oil rich city is considered part of Iraq proper rather then the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. However when ISIL launched their big advance over the summer Iraqi forces fled Kirkuk only for the Peshmerga to step in and keep it out of ISIL hands. As a result there is some tension between the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi National Government (ING) over whether Kirkuk will be returned to the ING or remain under the control of the KRG. In the immediate term though I think the priority has to be keeping Kirkuk out of ISIL control.

On Saturday (31/1/15) night ISIL released another hostage video. The first thing of note about this video is that it was an actual video rather then the still photograph accompanied by a vocal track that ISIL have been releasing recently. Also while it may have been shot in front of a greenscreen the video appears to have involved ISIL once again driving a large convoy of vehicles into the desert to shoot the video in defiance of the threat from coalition air-strikes. The short video features the ISIL fighter known as "Jihadi John" standing over Japanese hostage Kenji Goto who in kneeling in a orange jumpsuit. Jihadi John then delivers a typical rant about Japan defying ISIL's demands and his knife soon striking at the heart of the Japanese people before moving to cut Goto's throat. The video then cuts to footage of Goto's head piled on his decapitated body.

What is interesting about this video is that it makes no reference to Moaz al-Kasaesbeh - the Jordanian pilot that ISIL had threatened to kill alongside Goto unless Sajida al-Rishawi was released from Jordanian custody. In the roughly two weeks immediately following al-Kasaesbeh's capture ISIL flooded the Internet with images of him in detention. The belief seemed to be that this would cause the Jordanian people to rise up and force their government to withdraw from the coalition that is causing ISIL so much pain. When this didn't happen the images of al-Kasaesbeh suddenly stopped and there have been very strong rumours that ISIL had killed him either in a fit of rage or as he had tried to escape.

Since then ISIL have been unable to offer proof that al-Kasaesbeh is alive or offer to return him as part of a prisoner exchange - they only offered to spare his life in exchange for Sajida a-Rishawi. As a result it now seems extremely likely that al-Kasaesbeh is already dead. The only consolation his family can take is that he died doing his job and that job may well save thousands of others from facing a similar fate.

13:30 on 1/2/15 (UK date).