Operation Featherweight: Month 8, Week 1, Day 6.

I should probably start by explaining that the Kurdish Cizire Canton which I keep referring to is located in the north-eastern Al-Hasakah province of Syria. However the canton only covers about half of the province with the other half being controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Therefore operationally it makes more sense for me to think in terms of the canton rather then the entire province.

The current Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga combined operation in the Cizire Canton has been hugely successful having succeeded in liberating the area between the border with Iraq and the former ISIL stronghold of Tal Hamis. However these gains have come at a price with the combined Kurdish forces sustaining casualties at a higher rate then they did during the entire 134 day battle for the city of Kobane.

The main reason for this is that much of the fighting in Cizire has taken place in the open countryside rather then in urban streets. Although urban warfare is slow and nasty all the buildings do offer a degree of protection. In a rural setting this protection is lost with snipers being able to operate over much greater distances and it being easier to use heavy weapons such as artillery and mortars. Another factor is that Cizire has long been the most secure of the Kurdish cantons meaning that it has long been used as a base for a lot the YPG's training. As a result many of the fighters who have been involved in the recent operations lack the experience of many of the fighters in places like Kobane with this often being their first experience of combat.

With Cizire being the YPG's training base it is also where the 100 or so foreigners who have gone to fight alongside them are located. Since the operation in Cizire has begun more and more of these foreigners have found themselves in the thick of it on the front-line. So on February 24th (24/2/15) an Australian whose been identified as Ashley Johnston was killed in battle and on March 2nd (2/3/15) a British/Greek dual national by the name of Konstandinos Erik Scurfield was also killed.

Although I am immensely proud of anyone who is prepared to fight ISIL I am a little concerned about westerners being seen to take over. Within both Iraq and Syria there is a degree of tension between the Arabs and the Kurds with Arabs sometimes tending to view the Kurds as foreigners despite them being indigenous to the region. Therefore if lots of foreign fighters flood to fight alongside the Kurds it risks further alienating them for the Arabs who are also fighting ISIL. Creating this sort of division between allies will of course only play into ISIL's hands.

I must say though that the number of foreigners who have travelled to fight alongside the Kurds is so absolutely tiny it's not really possible to display it as a percentage. Unlike the westerners who go to fight alongside ISIL the people who have gone to assist the Kurds have not done so out of any great religious or ideological reason. Instead they've simply seen the genocide that ISIL have unleashed on the Kurds and most everybody else and decided to use the skills they have to stop it. Scurfield for example was a former Royal Marine with a great deal of military experience.

In fact I'm rather disappointed that the western governments who have already joined the coalition against ISIL are not doing more to help train and equip the YPG. After all while they may be a highly effectively guerrilla force it's clear that the YPG do need some help with the more traditional aspects of soldiering such as holding vast areas of open territory. Therefore I think it might be better for westerners without military experience to show their opposition to ISIL by lobbying their governments for more action and donating money rather then joining up with the YPG in the hope of a cheap thrill.

The situation within the Cizire Canton is actually rather an interesting one because back at the start of 2014 when ISIL made their big push into Iraq the YPG remained in control of most of the canton as ISIL largely by-passed it. However having established themselves in Iraq ISIL have begun to attack Cizire from across the border with Iraq. This recent operation has largely been focused on re-establishing the border between Iraq and the canton so ISIL are only able to attack from the south-west.

The big problem in re-establishing the Syria/Iraq border has been the situation around the city of Sinjar/Shingal on the Iraq side of the border. Although this area was liberated from ISIL in December of 2014  the city itself and the Nineveh plains beyond it are heavily mined with and littered with Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's). As they lack the expertise to clear these minefields the Peshmerga have been unable to properly establish themselves around Shingal in order to stop ISIL launching attacks across the border into Cizire. It has also prevented the authorities from examining the series of mass graves that are in the area in a effort to allow ISIL's victims to be buried by their loved ones.

Therefore while there are still many priorities that require action despite this operation now being in its eighth month there needs to be an increased effort to help the Kurdish forces deal with all the landmines and IED's they're encountering. This could be done by the coalition adding it as an aspect of the military training they're already providing or by the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) taking up the task. Some of the large minefields could even be dealt with by the coalition carrying out air-strikes against them.

I think the mass graves themselves and the cost of dealing with them should certainly fall under the remit of the UN or the International Criminal Court (ICC) so that what are clearly crimes against humanity are properly documented.

The issue of landmines and IED's are also becoming an factor in the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) efforts to liberate Tikrit for ISIL. I will try and cover this in more detail tomorrow but the operation seems to be going better then I'd expected with ISIL seeming to flee rather then fight. I should point out though that the ISF are currently at the stage surrounding and securing all the routes in and out of Tikrit rather then having fully begun the operation to liberate the city itself.

This process is being slowed a huge number of landmines and IED's left behind by ISIL. I think in one 8km section of road to the north of Tikrit the ISF encountered some 100 IED's which works out at around 1 every 80 metres which obviously takes a very long time to work through.

17:50 on 5/3/15 (UK date).