Operation Featherweight: Month 11, Week 5, Day 1.

In today's earlier post I covered the terror attack in Grenoble, France. Sadly that was just the start of it.

The attack in France was rapidly followed up by a suicide bombing at the Shia, Iman Sadiq Mosque in Kuwait City, Kuwait. The situation there is still rather one of blood, rubble and screaming but it appears that a young man entered the Mosque during Friday prayers and detonated a suicide bomb. The death toll currently stands at at least 25 with a further 202 wounded. The attack has been claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Just as news of the attack in Kuwait was breaking another attack began against two hotels frequented by western tourists in town of Sousse, Tunisia. Apparently a number of gunmen opened fire on tourists as they sunbathed on the beach and then followed them into the hotels as they fled. One of the gunmen was quite rapidly killed and security forces now seem to be going through the laborious task of sweeping through the hotels room-by-room, floor-by-floor before they can confirm that the incident is at an end. The current death toll stands at 28. There has so far been no claim of responsibility but given their strength in neighbouring Libya and their previous attacks against tourists in both Tunisia and Egypt it seems extremely likely that ISIL were involved.

As I said in my post on the Grenoble attack for almost the last year a US-led coalition has certainly been trying to give the impression that it is fighting a group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The "Levant" in the group's name refers to an area that stretches from parts of Turkey down through the entire middle-east including the Arabian peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Yemen etc) and across north-Africa. As such I find it extremely unhelpful for western politicians and news agencies to refer to the group as "ISIS" or "IS" because it gives the entirely false impression to non-Arabic speakers that they are only interested in Iraq and Syria.

The closer that ISIL attacks occur to ISIL's heartlands really the less there is for me to offer in terms of analysis. Although they like to disguise themselves as Sunni Muslims ideologically ISIL are in fact a nihilistic organisation. This means that for them violence is an objective in itself and there is a very fine line between that ideology and full blown mental illness.

As such the purpose of the attack in Kuwait was simply to kill as many of what ISIL view as "Shia infidels" as possible. There may also have been a hope that it would provoke Shias to retaliate against Sunnis in the hope of bringing forward the apocalyptic war between Sunnis and Shias that ISIL crave. The purpose of the attack in Tunisia was simply to kill as many of what ISIL view as "Christian infidels" as possible. There may also be an element of trying to deter tourists in order to bring about the economic collapse of Tunisia's secular, democratic government.

Beyond that we are into the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It was during last year's Ramadan that ISIL declared themselves to be an Islamic Caliphate and their leader to be the Caliph or leader of all Muslims. It is likely that ISIL are trying to boost their profile during this anniversary.

Also in the past week the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) dealt a huge blow to ISIL by liberating the Syrian town of Tel Abyad cutting ISIL's main supply route from Turkey and putting the YPG within 50km (30 miles) of ISIL's de facto capital of Raqqa. I think it's fair to assume that this defeat has made ISIL more then a bit angry and much like a spoilt toddler they are now throwing a violent tantrum in protest.

Therefore I think the question is not; "How can we defeat ISIL?" but; "Why have we still not defeated ISIL?"

To answer that question you need to look at US President Barack Obama who is - nominally at least - the Commander in Chief of the anti-ISIL coalition. Once Obama has finished taking credit for the US Justice system's upholding of gay marriage he will fly to Charleston, South Carolina to speak at the funeral of Democrat State Senator the Reverend Clementa Pinckney who was killed in last Thursday's (18/6/15) shooting.

Although I suspect they will avoid draping the coffin in the battle flag of the Democrat Party Obama will no doubt use this as an opportunity to celebrate Pinckney as a martyr and use his death to rally supporters behind fresh terrorist attacks against the US justice system.

So some eight years later I'm inclined to say that America is still waiting for it's first black President.

16:10 on 26/6/15 (UK date).