Operation Featherweight: Month 10, Week 1, Day 3.

Last Friday, April 24th (24/4/15) saw the hundredth anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide. The following day (25/4/15) saw the hundredth anniversary of the World War 1 battle of Gallipoli. Together these two events really mark the start of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire - the last Islamic Caliphate - so are hugely significant to the current fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

In fact one of the most notable atrocities of the Armenian genocide saw some 80,000 Christians rounded up and sent on a death march from Armenia to the city of Serekanyie/Ras al-Ayn in northern Syria. Those who survived the march were placed in concentration camps, raped, beaten tortured and finally massacred by Ottoman Turks and their Chechen allies. Therefore in attempting the establish their self-styled Islamic Caliphate ISIL seem to have simply picked up where the Ottomans left off.

Apparently getting a bit confused about when the battle of Gallipoli began Turkey held a commemoration event on the 24th at the same time that a commemoration service was being held in Armenia over the genocide. There was a very noticeable split between those European leaders who attended the Turkish service and those who attended the Armenian service. Amid this tense diplomatic atmosphere it really wasn't a good time for anybody in Iraq or Syria to be making any big moves or launching any fresh operations.

However if World War One taught us anything it's that once wars have been started they can be nearly impossible to end until one side completely overpowers the other. So despite the diplomatic awkwardness fighting has continued in both Iraq and Syria and it seems appropriate that I start by looking at Serekanyie which is located on the western boundary of the Kurdish Cizire Canton in north-eastern Syria.

Towards the end of February ISIL began launching attacks against Serekanyie from the Turkish border town of Tel Abayd which sits around 70km (42 miles) to west. Since then these attacks have been continuous and continuously repelled by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) with the help of daily air-strikes by the US-led coalition.

The situation is similar around the town of Tel Tamr which sits around 36km (22 miles) south-east of Serekanyie and around 36km (22 miles) north-west of the disputed city of Hasakah which sits on the southern border of the Cizire Canton. With Tel Tamr being a significant logistic hub for YPG forces stationed in Hasakah at the start of March ISIL launched an attack on the town. These attacks have continued ever since and have been continuously repelled by the YPG with the help of daily coalition air-strikes.

The situation is also similar along the eastern border to the Kurdish Kobane Canton which sits around 100km (60 miles) to the west of the Cizire Canton. Here ISIL have launched continuous, daily attacks from Tel Abayd predominately on the town of Bredirxane. These attacks are being repelled daily by the YPG with the help of coalition air-strikes.

This level of stasis is one of the main reasons why the frequency of my updates has slowed somewhat of late. What I try to do is subtly hint at what the problems are and what the possible solutions may be rather then spelling it out specifically for ISIL. This becomes much more difficult when I'm having to say the saw thing day in, day out because nothing has changed.

One thing that might help improve the situation is the Royce/Engel bill currently before the US Congress that proposes recognising both the Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga and it's Sunni tribes as nation states and arming them directly. This is the sort of bill that not even its sponsors expect to pass but it does set the stage for some useful discussions. When the anti-ISIL operation was launched may western politicians and politicians from Gulf States declared that the rise of ISIL was evidence that Syria and Iraq would have to be broken up into a Shiaistan, a Sunniistan and a Kurdistan. Now it has come down to supporting forces that want to create a Kurdistan everyone seems to have run away from that idea.

Another central part of US President Obama's plan to defeat ISIL has been to establish Sunni National Guard/Home Guard units within Iraq. If you look at the fight against ISIL in Anbar province it is clear that Iraq's Sunni tribes have a vital role to play. In the short term this role is best performed by providing Iraqi Security Force (ISF) and coalition air-support to the existing armed groups in the front-line areas. In the longer term it is better to strengthen the ISF so it includes those Sunni tribes because in the failure to strengthen the ISF the Shia Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) has grown in strength. If you create a situation where each Iraqi tribe and each Iraqi town has its own militia you will create a situation like the one seen in Libya where ISIL continue to grow amid the chaos. Therefore this element of Obama's plan needs to be abandoned in favour of providing more support to the ISF.

If the situation in Syria's Kurdish north has been frozen into a World War One type stand-off then the situation in the rest of Syria has deteriorated.

On March 28th a coalition of Syrian rebels led by Al Nusra Front (ANF) captured the City of Idlib in Idlib province some 300km (180 miles) north or the capital Damascus and some 65km (40 miles) south-west of the disputed City of Aleppo from Syrian government forces. Although many members of the US-led coalition are committed to overthrowing the Syrian government ANF are Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria and make no secret of the fact they wish to create an ungoverned space in the country from where they can plan and carry out terror attacks Worldwide. As a result they are listed alongside ISIL under United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014) giving the US-led coalition a mandate to defeat them. The coalition that ANF are leading contains many of the so-called moderate groups that the US wishes to arm and train in Turkey.

On Saturday (25/4/15) ANF continued their advance capturing the town of Jisr al-Shughour which is about 32km (19 miles) south-west of Iblib City. On Monday (27/4/15) ANF seized control of a Syrian army camp nearby tightening the siege on the Mastouma base. From their they are expected to attempt to capture the port city of Latakia which will give them access to the Mediterranean Sea.

The danger of the Syrian government collapsing before ISIL and ANF are defeated has been highlighted by the situation in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees which is located some 30km (18 miles) from the capital Damascus. Since the start of the Syria's civil war the Yarmouk camp has been under the protection of the Palestinian Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis (ABM) group who much like the YPG have largely stayed out of the wider conflict in favour of protecting their own people. All the insurgent factions hate ABM for this so at the start of April ANF gave ISIL permission to enter Yarmouk to purge it of ABM. When this caused a humanitarian crisis within in the camp and prompted ABM to enter into a temporary alliance ISIL withdrew from Yarmouk leaving it in the hands of ANF.

The Syrian government and ABM are continuing to try and liberate the camp from ANF and sadly whilst it remains under ANF humanitarian aid cannot be distributed within the camp. Without the Syrian government to challenge the situation in Yarmouk is likely to be repeated throughout Syria.

16:30 on 1/5/15 (UK date).