As previously mentioned on the weekend of February 22nd (22/2/15) the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga and the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) launched a joint operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the Kurdish Cizire Canton which borders Iraq in Syria's north-east.
In response to this offensive ISIL began kidnapping Christians of the Assyrian ethnic group in commando-style raids at the edges of the Canton. Over the past week the number of Assyrian Christians held by ISIL has increased from 90 to 220. Primarily this was done in an effort to blackmail the Peshmerga and the YPG into ending their operation or the hostages would be killed.
This very much didn't happen with the Peshmerga/YPG pushing on to liberate in excess of 100 villages in that border region. On Friday (27/2/15) Kurdish forces succeeded in liberating the town of Tel Hamees which has been one of ISIL's main bases of operations in the area. As a result ISIL have now been completely eliminated from positions between Tel Hamees and the Iraqi border. Kurdish forces are now likely to press on to clear ISIL from positions between Tel Hamees and the contested city of Al-Hasakah which sits around 65km (39 miles) to the south-west and marks the border of the Cizire Canton.
In response ISIL fighters on the Iraq side of the border have overnight launched a fresh offensive of the town of Sinjar/Shingal from positions in the south across the Nineveh plane and from the east where they hold positions between Shingal and Tal Afar which was liberated towards the end of January. This offensive is very much going on as I write but with the support of air-strikes from the US-led coalition the Peshmerga do seem to be repelling it and remain very much in control of the situation. They are though sustaining casualties and using up ammunition.
ISIL have also responded to the loss of Tel Hamees by moving onto the second part of their plan for their Assyrian Christian hostages. Essentially this involves offering to release the hostages either in exchange for ISIL fighters that have been captured or an agreement that the Kurdish forces won't launch fresh operations to liberate territory from ISIL. The problem ISIL have here is that they have a very poor record for releasing hostages alive so there is no incentive for people to try and negotiate with them. So to sweeten the deal ISIL have today released 21 of their Assyrian hostages.
What has been interesting about the way ISIL have gone about this that rather then simply releasing the hostages ISIL claimed that they had been put on trial and been released because they'd been found innocent. This seems to be an intentional effort by ISIL to re-legitimise themselves as Muslims.
While in the west there is still a debate as to whether ISIL are Muslims and US President Barack Obama still seems to view them as such they have very much been entirely rejected by the Muslim world. Back in August 2014 when ISIL swept across large swathes of Iraq and their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself Caliph of the entire Muslim world some 100 leading Muslim organisations including Egypt's Al-Azhar Mosque put their name to a letter which comprehensively destroyed ISIL claim that they were an Islamic organisation.
One of the main points al-Azhar in particular highlighted was the doctrine of "Takfir" which ISIL have used to justify killing people they consider to be apostates or unbelievers. These Islamic scholars pointed out that takfir doesn't apply to followers of different sects of Islam such as Shias or non-Salafi Sunnis or even followers of the other Abrahamic religions such as Judaism or Christianity. Instead it only applies to complete unbelievers such as atheists. They went on to point out that people cannot be arbitrarily labelled as takfir like ISIL do but instead each case must be considered individually by a panel of experts in theological law.
As a result the authors of the letter very pointedly said that although they consider ISIL to be breaking many aspects of Islamic law and therefore are not Muslims they would not go so far as to label them takfir until ISIL members had been given the opportunity to individually appear before a panel of experts in order to plead their case.
Therefore by announcing that these 21 Assyrian Christians have been released after a trial ISIL are not only trying to sweeten the possibility of negotiations over the remaining hostages but also attempt to gain some level of credibility amongst a Muslim world that has disowned them.
In terms of the negotiations over the hostages itself any suggestion that ISIL will be granted any respite in the operations against them is absolutely out of the question. The issue of prisoner exchanges though is more complicated because they are not actually that uncommon during the type of long conflict that the US seems intent on turning this into. However these type of exchanges are normally limited to combatants for combatants in order to avoid having the civilian population used as pawns. After all there is little point releasing 200 ISIL prisoners for 200 hostages if those ISIL fighters are then going to go out and take 400 new hostages.
Away from the Kurdish areas the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) have today launched an operation to liberate Tikrit from ISIL. Tikrit sits 180km (108 miles) north of the capital Baghdad which is obviously under ISF control and 50km (30 miles) south of Baiji which is also under ISF control. So rather then being an operation to push north towards Mosul this is much more of a pincer operation to close out a pocket of ISIL resistance between Baghdad and Baiji. However the loss of Tikrit will close off a large section of the supply route to Mosul further weakening ISIL's grip on that large northern city.
Tikrit is also likely to be an interesting battle because it is the birthplace of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and a stronghold of his Ba'ath Party. If you've seen the 2010 film "Green Zone" you would know that following the fall of Saddam in 2003 the Ba'ath Party was disbanded along with the Iraqi army that was dominated by Ba'ath Party members. Part of the reason that ISIL were able to advance so far into Iraq last summer is that many of these disgruntled Ba'athist Generals sided with them much as the Tuaregs sided with the Islamists who swept across northern Mali in 2012. Therefore it will be interesting to see if after seven months of ISIL rule in the city the Ba'athists still think that an alliance with ISIL is everything they'd hoped for.
Obviously with the battle for Tikrit at the very early stages of an operation that could last several weeks not much has actually happened yet. Then of course there is always the need for the release of operationally sensitive information to be delayed as not to warn ISIL of what is going to happen in advance. However it shouldn't be too difficult for the western media to provide daily updates of how the battle is going as they were during the summer's war in Gaza.
The UK media in particular seems to have a very large ISIL shaped hole in its schedules because following the unmasking of "Jihadi John" last Thursday (26/2/15) we've heard of little else. Not only have we now heard from his old employer, his old university and some of his old school teachers we've also gone through - in great detail - emails he sent to CAGE UK and emails he sent to the Mail on Sunday newspaper. The emails in particular detail at great length the emotional suffering and distress that Britain's 'Islamaphobic' security services have been putting poor Jihadi John through.
This is all to be expected because the reason why Jihadi John was involved with CAGE is that he was already a terrorist and they were helping to lobby the security services (via the politicians and the media) to lift the restrictions on him to make his life as a terrorist easier.
By definition terrorists exploit emotions - terror normally - to achieve their ends so it is no surprise that CAGE and Jihadi John were trying to elicit feelings of sympathy by portraying him as some poor, put upon character. Large sections of Jihadi John's sob story are very similar to my own life story. This is simply because he was looking at my example and trying to copy from it. I don't know why though because it's not like I've got my passport back.
Therefore I think it is really time for the media to put the Jihadi John story to bed because at best all this coverage creates a level of confusion around me which I can cope but seems a bit unnecessary. At worst by repeating Jihadi John's sob stories without challenging them the media risks legitimising them and strengthening ISIL by radicalising others to take up their cause.
After seven months of war we really should have decided by now whether ISIL are our friends or whether we're trying to defeat them.
18:15 on 2/3/15 (UK date).
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