Operation Featherweight: Month 10, Week 3, Day 6.

In June 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized the town of Baiji which sits around 215km (129 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad and around 100km (60 miles) south-west of the city of Kirkuk. They also surrounded the Baiji oil refinery which sitson the out-skirts of the town. In November 2014 the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) succeeded in liberating both the town and the refinery from ISIL.

In March 2015 the ISF advanced from Baiji as part of the operation to liberate Tikrit which sits around 45km (27 miles) to the south. By April 7th (7/4/15) Tikrit had been fully liberated. However on April 11th (11/4/15) ISIL launched a fresh assault on the Baiji refinery which succeeded in encircling the compound and allowed ISIL to seize a number of key areas in the compound including the site's garrison and the docking station where crude oil is pumped in and refined fuel is pumped out. Although there has since been an ISF counter-offensive and an ISIL counter-counter-offensive the situation remains largely unchanged with ISIL in control of around 50% of the refinery.

Obviously this represents a bit of a strategic nightmare for the ISF because it prevents them from using the refinery which provides around a third of Iraq's total fuel supply. Also the troops who are being killed and injured in the almost constant fighting cannot be deployed elsewhere. However it is not a complete disaster because ISIL aren't able to use the refinery either and they don't seem to be making a legitimate attempt to seize either the compound or the town. Instead what ISIL seem to be focused on is conducting dramatic fire-fights and raising their flag over buildings. These are all video-taped and released on the Internet. As I've explained before rather like Nazi Germany ISIL are a group that is very much defined by its ability to destroy. Therefore it constantly needs to be showing its supporters evidence of it carrying out fresh operations in order to sustain the momentum of the movement.

It appears that US President Barack Obama has also signed up to this propaganda-led style of fighting. On Friday (15/5/15) the US mounted a special forces raid into Deir-er-Zour in Syria to kill an ISIL commander identified as "Abu Sayyaf" and capture his wife unidentified as "Umm Sayyaf." Obviously I don't expect the latest intelligence on ISIL's operations to be readily available on the Internet but I have to say that I have never heard this supposed commander mentioned before and I get the impression that none of my better connected associates had heard of them either. Therefore I think the main motivation behind the raid was to do something big and sexy that would grab the headlines and make it look like Obama is doing something when in reality progress against ISIL remains painfully slow.

It also served to show that the US is prepared to take firm action to back up the commitments it made at the meeting with the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) that took place in the US on May 13th (13/5/15) and May 14th (14/5/15). Despite the heads of the GCC nations refusing to attend this meeting it represented a complete American capitulation to their demands and their support for ISIL. For example in his press conference Obama reaffirmed the US commitment to a government of national unity in Libya. This was a diplomatic way of saying that the US will continue to grant a degree of legitimacy to the Turkish and Qatari backed Islamist militia's in the west in an effort to continue the instability in the country. The US also reaffirmed it's commitment to the overthrow of the Syrian government which is why the GCC nations created ISIL in the first place.

Finally on Friday (15/5/15) the US Congress approved funding for the formation of an Iraqi Sunni Home/National Guard program. As I've explained before this is a recipe for turning Iraq into a Libya-style failed state with disparate militia's fighting each other. However it also shows that the US is still committed to the lie that ISIL is simply a Sunni protest movement that sprung up in response to oppression by Iraq's Shia dominated government. Iraq is of course a Shia dominated country.

In the first instance the Deir-ez-Zour raid showed that the US is not prepared to respect Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity by sending in ground troops without prior warning to the Syrian government let alone their permission. By targeting a man who is claimed to be in charge of ISIL's oil and financial operations the US was showing that it is focused on the strategic bombing of ISIL's oil infrastructure despite it being well established that this will do little to defeat ISIL on the ground. Finally "Abu Sayyaf" and "Umm Sayyaf" are the masculine and feminine versions of the term "Bearers of the Sword." Abu Sayyaf is also the name of a well known Filipino Islamist terror group who are linked to Al Qaeda and conducted the Philippines worst terror attack with the 2004 bombing of a ferry that killed 116. Active since 2000 they have carried out a string of other attacks including the kidnapping of aid workers and American citizens. US Secretary of State John Kerry is currently on a tour of South-East Asia.

The US' capitulation at the GCC Summit provided and instant boost to the more militant elements in the region. On Friday (15/5/15) Turkey announced that it had arrested 10 soldiers. Their crime was stopping a convoy of vehicles carrying weapons to insurgents in Syria in January 2014. On Saturday (16/5/15) Turkey announced that it had shot down a Syrian military jet that had violated Turkish airspace. When members of the US-led coalition pointed out that they had been unable to see this jet on radar the Turks changed their mind and decided it had been a helicopter that had been flying too low to be picked up on radar. When the Turks were pressed to provide footage of the crash site they admitted that the aircraft had actually been shotdown in Syrian airspace. It is believed that the Turks in fact violated Syrian airspace to shoot down a small drone.

The most alarming boost by the US' capitulation though was received by ISIL themselves who on Friday launched a large offensive in Iraq's Anbar province centred on the town of al-Baghdadi and the provincial capital Ramadi. By Sunday (17/5/15) ISIL had succeeded in forcing the ISF out of Ramadi taking full control of the city which sits around 100km (60 miles) west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Clearly the fall of Ramadi is a victory for ISIL and a defeat for the ISF and the US-led coalition. However it is not as catastrophic as it first sounds. Ramadi first came under attack from ISIL back in January 2014 but they never succeeded in taking full control of the city. Since roughly November 2014 around 60% of Ramadi has been under ISIL's control with the ISF controlling the other 40%. In mid-April ISIL launched a fresh attempt to gain Ramadi and the ISF have been slowly losing territory ever since. So Sunday's victory wasn't ISIL launching a lightning advance to capture a whole new city so much as them finally squeezing the ISF from a small portion of at city they already largely controlled.

Also ISIL have controlled Fallujah which sits between Ramadi and Baghdad since January 2014 so the complete capture of Ramadi doesn't put them any closer to the capital. Finally the ISF still control the town of Hit which sits around 50km north-west of Ramadi between the city and ISIL's heartland in Syria. The ISF also control the town of  Habbaniyah which sits around 25km to the east between Ramadi and Fallujah. As such I would say that ISIL still remain very much contained within Anbar province and the fall of Ramadi could well present an opportunity to the ISF and the coalition.

At around 17:15 on 18/5/15 (UK date) I will be back to explain what I mean by that after dinner.

Edited at around 18:45 on 18/5/15 (UK date) to add;

Up until now the fight against ISIL has been at best shambolic. The fundamental problem has been the US' - as the leader of the coalition - failure to decide that ISIL and their mission to exterminate all Shia Arabs in the region including the Syrian and Iraqi governments is wrong and ISIL are an enemy that needs to be defeated.

As a result rather then taking decisive military action the US' mission over the past 9 months has been to evade and avoid the issue. So they've conducted a pin-prick bombing campaign that certainly costs a lot of money and to the untrained eye certainly looks like the US is doing something. However even to someone of my limited experience it is clear that the air campaign is of extremely limited military value and will certainly not defeat ISIL.

On the ground what the US should have been doing is during this time is working with the Iraqi government and the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) to draw up a strategic plan to force ISIL from the territory they hold. Instead what the US has been doing is use delaying tactics and putting up barriers such as the need for ever more reforms to the ISF and training for troops to prevent ISIL being defeated.

Amid this vacuum of support from the US tensions within the Iraqi population have risen and they have turned for help to the Shia militias which are collectively known as the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) who seem to be the only element of the coalition prepared to fight and defeat ISIL. The US' response to this has been furious with them initially refusing to participate in the operation to liberate Tikrit and making wild accusations of human rights abuses against the PMF and even wilder accusations claiming that the PMF are part of an Iranian invasion of Iraq.

Although they do need to tighten up on their respect for human rights my main objection to the PMF is that they are a militia rather then a formal military force. As such they lack the discipline, tactical awareness and strategic forethought needed to complete a mission of the size of eliminating ISIL from Iraq. For example although ultimately successful the Tikrit operation was extremely chaotic particularly in the early stages. The PMF's biggest mistake though was rather then seeing the operation through to the end as soon as Tikrit itself was liberated they rushed off an immediately wanted to start operations to liberate Ramadi, Fallujah and "all of Anbar" at the same time. This provoked ISIL into mounting it's own pre-emptive Anbar operation which has resulted in the fall of Ramadi and has forced the ISF to spread itself thin as it rushes from front-line to front-line as it tries to deal with the crisis.

As such I think that the fall of Ramadi provides the ISF and the coalition an opportunity to tighten up its operations. Provided ISIL can be contained in Anbar no longer having to fight the battle in Ramadi grants the ISF time to sit down with the coalition to draw up a coherent strategy to defeat ISIL nationally by prioritising areas that can be and need to be liberated from ISIL. The ISF with the coalition providing close air-support can then concentrate their resources into liberating those areas in order of priority rather then randomly rushing around into fresh battles that are lost.

19:15 on 15/5/15 (UK date).