It has been another bruising 24 hours for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Overnight the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) entered the village of Albu Ajil which sits around 1km (0.6 miles) to the south of the city of Tikrit and is effectively the gates of the city.
As a result the ISF's encirclement of Tikrit is now complete so after a short period in which they consolidate their position the ISF are now ready to strike at the heart of the city itself which sits some 150km (90 miles) of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. In response to the overnight gains by the ISF a convoy of around 40 ISIL vehicles were seen fleeing Tikrit for the al-Huwaija district which sits around 90km (54 miles) to the north-east of Tikrit and around 60km (36 miles) south-west of Kirkuk.
If ISIL are looking for safety they're unlikely to find it there because this morning the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga launched a fresh offensive to push south-west from Kirkuk into al-Huwaija district. This operation is ongoing but the Peshmerga appear to have advanced at least 20km (12 miles) and liberated the villages Sakhra and Wadi Naft. So far it is being reported that 10 Peshmerga lost their lives against an enemy force that is estimated to number around 2000 and at least 81 Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) have been defused.
Although it is not participating in the operation to liberate Tikrit the US-led coalition does appear to be providing a level of air-support to the Peshmerga operation. Overnight the coalition did cause some controversy by killing 30 in an air-strike against an ISIL oil refinery just outside Tel Abayd which effectively sits on Syria's northern border with Turkey.
Although it is believed that the overwhelming majority of those killed were ISIL fighters there is some concern that the dead includes civilians who were being forced by ISIL to work the refinery. As I feel I've explained hundreds of times before killing civilians in attacks on this type of dual use facility is counter-productive because it helps give the impression that the coalition is at war with the local population rather then trying to liberate them from their ISIL oppressors. The uniformed head of the US military General Dempsey himself reiterated that position saying on a visit to Baghdad today that carpet bombing ISIL held areas is not the answer.
The air-strike on the Tel Abayd oil refinery though seems to be indicative of the wider problem with the coalition - particularly the US' - approach towards this entire conflict. Tel Abayd is undoubtedly being used as ISIL's base of operations against the eastern front of the Kurdish Kobane Canton. As such you would expect it to be experiencing a high volume of coalition air-strikes to knock out the ISIL ammunition stores and troop staging areas located there.
However US President Barack Obama still seems absolutely terrified of the idea that the US-led coalition might actually succeed in defeating ISIL. Instead he seems intent on delaying any form of military action in order to buy time so Turkey can train more Sunni-Arab insurgents to go into Syria under the pre-text of fighting ISIL. There is of course a strong suspicion that Turkey is continuing to allow ISIL fighters to cross its border at Tel Abayd in order to attack the Kobane Canton from within Turkey.
As such you kind of get the impression that the only way the coalition can get permission to attack anything in Tel Abayd is by telling Obama that it's an oil refinery.
If Obama's apparent prohibition on fighting ISIL were to be lifted coalition air-strikes would also be very welcome around the town of Tel Tamr in the Kurdish Cizire Canton which has been under ISIL assault since Saturday (7/2/15). Amid the excitement over Tikrit and Kirkuk I am still struggling to get information about how that battle is going. However the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have confirmed that the first female foreign fighter to die in the conflict was killed in fighting around Tel Tamr. She has been named as Ivana Hoffman - a 19 year old German/South African dual national.
I have also been thinking more about the Canadian Special Forces soldier who was killed in a friendly fire incident involving the Peshmerga in northern Iraq. Although there is no dispute that this was the result of a simple mis-communication as he approached a Peshmerga observation post he and his team was inspecting as part of the training mission it does raise questions about the type of training that the coalition is providing to the Peshmerga. While I don't have any particular inside information the presence of special forces troops suggests that the main focus of the training is on sophisticated counter-insurgency/terrorism operations.
If you look back at the Peshmerga's history they were really formed as an insurgent force to fight Saddam Hussein at the end of the 1990-91 Gulf War. They reprised this role at the start of the Iraq war in 2003 helping the US to attack Saddam's forces from the north. After the fall of Saddam the Peshmerga received lots of counter-terrorist training to help protect the Kurdish region from Islamist insurgents. With the recent all hands call to fight ISIL some people who were previously involved in the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) have undoubtedly now joined up with the Peshmerga. According to Turkey and therefore the US and the EU the PKK is itself a terrorist organisation.
As such I think it is fair to assume that there is probably very little that the Peshmerga do not know about counter-insurgency/terrorism tactics and they could probably teach the special forces a trick or two. However they seem less capable at some of the more traditional military skills such as the drills that allow people to stay sharp and alert during long and tedious guard duties at observation towers.
Therefore it might be worth considering shifting the focus of the training the Peshmerga are given towards the less glamorous but essential basics. The UK seem to be moving in this direction with the announcement over the weekend that bomb disposal teams will now be made part of its training mission.
18:00 on 9/3/15 (UK date).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment