Operation Featherweight: Month 11, Week 3, Day 5.

With the exception of Saturday's (13/6/15) quick note it's been more then a month since I last wrote on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). As such what I really need to do is a complete overview of how the situation has changed in that time. After all everything is connected. However that in itself will take quite a lot of time and it seems the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have not been prepared to wait.

Within Iraq the situation has been rather static. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) have been able to contain ISIL within Ramadi which sits around 36km (22 miles) west of Fallujah and the town of Karma which sits around 10km (6 miles) north-east of Fallujah. As a result there is no current threat of ISIL overrunning the Iraqi capital of Baghdad which sits around 50km (30 miles) east of Fallujah. The ISF and ISIL continue to battle over the city of Baiji and its oil refinery which sits around 215km (129 miles) north of Baghdad and 40km (24 miles) north of the regional capital Tikrit. Obviously air-strikes continue, people continue to get killed and things continue to get destroyed although there seems to be little sign of either side gaining the upper hand. The US seems happy to continue to delay the ISF's progress by demanding that they receive more training and dispatching a further 450 troops to carry out that training.

Across the bulk of Syria the situation has continued to deteriorate. The US-backed, Al Qaeda-led "Army of Conquest" (Jaish al-Fatah/JAF) have continued to make gains against the Syrian government in the north-west of the country on the border between the Aleppo and Latakia provinces. They are also making gains in the south of the country between the capital Damascus and the borders with Jordan and Israel where massacres have been carried out. In terms of defeating ISIL this is a disaster because the fall of the Syrian government will remove the largest and most effective anti-ISIL force in Syria and the resulting chaos may make it impossible to identify and defeat ISIL in the future.

An example of the important role played by the Syrian government in the fight against ISIL has emerged in Syria's north-eastern Hasakah  province - around half of which makes up the Kurdish Cizire Canton. Since roughly the end of March 2015 ISIL have been battling the YPG for control of the town of Tel Tamr because the town functions as the YPG's main supply hub to it's forces that are battling the Syrian government for control of the city of Al-Hasakah which sits around 36km (22 miles) to the south-east. ISIL's intention being that if they could control Tel Tamr they would then be quickly able to dislodge the YPG from Al-Hasakah. 

However after more then two months of fighting ISIL gave up on their attempts to capture Tel Tamr and instead focused their efforts on dislodging Syrian government forces from Al-Hasakah. This could be an attempt to then attack the YPG from what are currently Syrian government positions in Al-Hasakah or it could be an attempt to lay the ground work for an allegiance with JAF. You will remember that JAF and ISIL teamed up to attack and briefly occupy the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in the suburbs of Damascus.

Regardless of what ISIL's intentions were their decision to focus on fighting the Syrian government in Al-Hasakah rather then the YPG in Tel Tamr has freed up YPG resources to mount an operation to liberate the town of Tel Abyad/Gire Spi. I have talked about this town before because it is of massive strategic importance. Sitting almost mid-way between the Cizire Canton and the Kobane Canton it has long been used as a base from where ISIL have launched attacks against the western border of the Cizire Canton and the eastern border of the Kobane Canton. It also sits directly on the border with Turkey providing ISIL with a key supply route from Turkey to their de facto capital of Raqqa some 90km (53 miles) to the south. 

Over the course of the past week YPG units including a very small contingent of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have advanced east and west from the Kobane and Cizire Cantons. On Thursday (11/6/15) they had converged on the village of Qaysariyeh 3km (1.8 miles) to the south surrounding Tel Abyad. On Saturday (13/6/15) the YPG launched their assault proper on the town.

Late yesterday (15/6/15) evening the YPG had succeeded in liberating the actual border crossing with Turkey in the north of the town. Today the YPG have been engaged in a mopping up operation clearing the last remaining pockets of ISIL resistance in the town and due to the professionalism we've come to expect from the YPG they won't declare Tel Abyad liberated until that mopping up has been completed. However independent observers are reporting that the fighting is already over with not a shot being fired since dawn

The liberation of Tel Abyad is utterly devastating for ISIL because it closes their main supply route between Turkey and Raqqa. However it also establishes a roughly 33,000km^2 (20,000 miles^2) area of Kurdish control stretching from the Euphrates river all the way to Iraqi Kurdistan's border with Iran. This leaves Turkey able to concentrate it's resources on sealing off the remaining 275km (165 miles) of it's border to prevent foreign fighters crossing into Syria to join ISIL.

The area itself can now be used as the safe-haven to protect refugees fleeing ISIL that Turkey has been demanding for so long. If the US-led coalition is finally prepared to work with the YPG to defeat ISIL this area can also be used as a training and staging area from where coalition forces can push down into ISIL controlled territory. The victory in Tel Abyad which has come in the almost complete absence of coalition support has also significantly strengthened the YPG's claim to be the leading opposition group to ISIL in Syria.

Obviously with the Tel Abyad operation being such a huge defeat for ISIL many of their allies have been trying to have it halted. Being unable to join in with the fighting on the ground for the most part this has involved accusations that the YPG have been engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Arab and Turkmen ethnic groups in an effort turn the local population against the YPG and trigger international pressure on them to halt the liberation. These accusations appear to have been started by JAF - particularly the Jaish al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant whose name makes it quite clear that they share ISIL's main objective. Worryingly over the past week these accusations have also been repeated by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan although no evidence has been presented to support them.

In fact the first I heard that the assault of Tel Abyad itself was beginning was a statement by the YPG that they were beginning the operation and there was no need for the town's residents to flee. However if they wished to temporarily escape from the fighting the YPG made it clear they would be allowed to cross their lines and take up temporary shelter in either the Cizire or Kobane Cantons. However many of the residents did decide to flee into Turkey.

It will be interesting to see now if Turkey will allow those refugees to return to Tel Abyad because initially Turkey refused to allow refugees to return to Kobane City.

17:25 on 16/6/15 (UK date).