Operation Featherweight: Month 7, Week 3, Day 4.

You may have noticed that in recent weeks my updates on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have become less frequent. The reason for this is that there simply isn't much going on. In short the members of the US-led coalition have been left twiddling their thumbs waiting for US President Barack Obama to make a decision.

Within Syria the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) have continued to liberate the area around the city of Kobane - the Kobane Canton - amid moderate to light resistance from ISIL. The villages they are currently operating in are so small that it is hard to find them on any map making it difficult for me to assess the YPG's progress. However they now seem to be in control of around 75-80% of the canton although with local planning/zoning not being a priority in a war it's never been completely clear where the canton begins and ends.

As their nihilist ideology dictates that they don't exist unless they are destroying ISIL have continued to launch attacks elsewhere in Iraq and Syria. For example on Thursday (12/2/15) ISIL launched yet another attack on the town of Sinjar/Shingal that sits close to Iraq's border with Syria. As more of a revenge attack on the Kurds rather then a legitimate attempt to seize the town this attack was quickly repelled by the Kurdish Peshmerga. However this type of harassment raid does use up manpower and resources and forces the Peshmerga to focus on defence rather trying to seize the initiative by going on the offensive.

ISIL's main effort though has been focused on Iraq's southern Anbar province which sits just to the west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. You may remember that in September 2014 the Iraqi army launched a big twin offensivc to liberate the Anbar cities of Ramadi and Fallujah from ISIL. Unfortunately that effort was abandoned by the coalition which decided to start randomly bombing targets in Syria rather then provide the Iraqi army with close air-support. As a result the operation eventually collapsed and Anbar has remained a weak point ever since.

On Thursday ISIL fighters launched a fresh assault on the town of al-Baghdadi which sits around 85km (50 miles) from Ramadi which in turn sits around 110km (66 miles) west of Baghdad. By Friday (13/2/15) ISIL's two pronged assault had succeeded in seizing control of al-Baghdadi. ISIL then launched an assault on the Ain al-Asad airbase that sits just 5km (3 miles) to the south-west of al-Baghdadi. This is a prime target for ISIL because despite Obama's repeated claims of "No US boots on the ground" al-Asad is currently home to 320 US Marines whom ISIL would very much like to kill. Fortunately the attack was quickly repelled not by the US Marines but by the Iraqi army which the US is constantly trying to convince us aren't capable of fighting ISIL.

Probably since the war against ISIL began I've felt that Anbar province and Fallujah and Ramadi in particular should be more of a priority then liberating cities like Mosul provided the coalition is prepared to provide air-support. However at this point rather then going on the offensive the forces on the ground in Anbar have been left screaming out for coalition air-support simply so they can defend the territory they currently hold.

While I'm here I should also point out that ISIL's Anbar offensive, the frenzy over the Chapel Hill shootings, yesterday's terror attacks in Denmark and today's threatened terror attack in Germany have all coincided with a big propaganda effort by Saudi Arabia to convince us that the Syrian government must be overthrown so ISIL can rule over all of the Levant unhindered. Essentially this propaganda effort has centred around flooding Twitter with gruesome images of dead babies alongside the hashtag #AssadHolocaust.

The intention has clearly been to liken the Syrian governments fight against ISIL to the Nazi genocide of the 1930's and 1940's. The first problem with this is that "Holocaust" which means a great, all consuming fire has only been used to refer to the Nazi genocide since the 1970's. It was chosen to convey to people the horror of how the Nazis killed literally millions of people and then burnt their remains in huge ovens that had been built especially for the purpose.

By comparison the actions of the Syrian government seem perfectly reasonable in the context of a four year war particularly when you consider the nature of the enemy they're fighting in ISIL. For example in the war against Nazi Germany the UK bombed the city of Dresden killing around 25,000 civilians in a matter of hours. A few months later the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan killing 166,000 civilians in a matter of seconds.

Prior to the 1970's the term Holocaust was most synonymous with "Inferno" a poem/story by Dante Alighieri an Italian poet of the 13th century. Inferno tells of the author's journey through the nine circles of hell that are arranged like a city with the lesser sinners confined to the countryside while the most serious sinners are in the centre around the palace that houses the Devil himself.

The eighth circle of hell is reserved for those who have committed the sin of fraud or deception. The ninth district of the eighth circle houses the sowers of discord who have convinced others to commit sins of violence by spreading lies. That ninth district is home to Abu Bakr and Ali ibn Abi Talib who have been condemned to having their bodies hacked to pieces for all eternity for the sin of dividing Sunni and Shia Muslims against each other.

As a result I'm starting to get the impression that people who consider education to be sinful aren't particularly well read.

14:40 on 15/2/15 (UK date).