Operation Featherweight: Month 12, Week 1, Day 1.

Even before I woke up on Thursday (25/6/15) I was having an extremely bad day. Being tired I over slept by two hours and in the little time remaining I had urgent errands to run and chores to do. As a result I didn't really get up to speed with the attack on Kobane city until night had fallen in the area.

At that time the reports I was getting were that the fighting had ended. This was entirely true but I made a mistake in thinking that meant the attack was over. What had happened is that small sections or squads of fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had become active in the city. After charging around the city killing civilians at random they holed up in key buildings that they used as sniper positions.

This is a very common terrorist tactic but the example that sprung to my mind occurred in Kabul, Afghanistan in April 2012. Here a group of Taliban fighters attacked a construction site and holed up in one of the under-construction tower blocks using it as a firing position. It took several teams of extremely elite British (SBS) and New Zealander (NZSAS) special forces the best part of two days to remove them.

What happened in Kobane is that as soon as night fell neither the ISIL fighters nor the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) were able to see to shoot so the fighting stopped. However it started again as soon as dawn broke and more civilians were killed. I gather that the last of the ISIL fighters were removed on Friday (26/6/15) afternoon and by Saturday (27/6/15) the situation had been entirely brought to an end. To me this highlights just how little support the YPG have received because the US-led coalition certainly seems to have no problem handing out night vision equipment and what are termed "Hard Target Interdiction" high calibre rifles to Al Qaeda affiliated Islamist groups within Syria.

As the dust has settled it has become clearer how ISIL were able to mount this attack. Following the liberation of Kobane city in late January 2015 the YPG have been encouraging civilian refugees from all of Syria's ethnic groups to flock there as a safe haven from ISIL attack. In this effort they have received absolutely no help from any of the international aid agencies such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). This has created a bureaucratic nightmare which ISIL were able to exploit by slipping sleeper cells into Kobane from disguised as returning refugees. Those sleeper cells were activated when ISIL drove Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED's) into Kobane across the Mursitpinar border crossing. 

No doubt Turkey's accusations that the YPG were engaged in ethnic cleansing put pressure on them to reduce the security checks being carried out in order to show that as many people as possible were being allowed to return as quickly as possible.

Demonstrating a significant level of co-ordination the attack on Kobane city co-incided with an attack on the village of Barkh Butan which sits around 30km (18 miles) south of Kobane city just 20km (12 miles) inside the southern border of Kobane Canton. Here ISIL fighters did break through the front-line and carried out a massacre in the village. They then drove to Kobane city and by Thursday evening had begun to attack the hills that overlook the city. This led to a day of fighting on Friday but by Saturday they had been defeated.

Turkey initially claimed that the attack on Kobane city had originated in the town of Jarablus which sits just outside of the western border of the Kobane Canton on the other side of the Euphrates River some 30km (18 miles) from Kobane city. On Friday (26/6/15) ISIL definitely launched an attack from Jarablus. It succeeded in penetrating a full 1km (0.6 miles) into the Canton before being stopped by the YPG around the village of (upper) Shiukh.

With several rapidly developing attacks occurring at various locations it has been difficult to accurately assess the death toll. For example if a sniper in a building shoots someone in the street that person's body will have to lay in the street until the sniper is removed. Only then will you begin to find out how many other people the sniper has killed in taking over the building. However as of Saturday the death toll from all three attacks across the Kobane Canton stands at 206.

Despite this significant loss of life my initial assessment that the attacks lacked any real military value and there is no indication that Kobane Canton let alone Kobane city could fall back into ISIL's hands remains unchanged. However it does serve to highlight that now they look likely to face further attacks from ISIL in Hasakah city the YPG have probably gone as far as they can without assistance from the US-led coalition. 

Imagine what they could achieve with proper support. 

Focusing on another of the big attacks of the last few days authorities in Kuwait have identified the suicide bomber who attacked the Shia, Iman Sadiq Mosque in Kuwait City on Friday (26/6/15) killing 26 and wounding 227. They have also arrested his suspected accomplice. Both Fahd Suleiman Abdulmohsen al-Qaba'a and Abdul-Rahman Sabah Aden have been identified as Saudi nationals. However the driver's name "Sabah Aden" roughly translates as the "Dawn of Aden" suggesting that he has some connection to the Yemeni port city of Aden.

As such the attack seems to have been planned to provoke Shia's in Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) nations - Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia etc - to carry out revenge attacks. Since March the GCC have been attacking Yemen on the grounds that Yemen's Shia's will carry out terrorist attacks against GCC nations. Legally this excuse is completely invalid however what weakens it further is that there haven't actually been any Shia terror attacks. Saudi Arabia explains this away by claiming that the international sanctions on Iran have left it unable to fund and plan these terror attacks. Presumably then if those sanctions are lifted on Tuesday (30/6/15) the Shia attacks will immediately begin. Or at least that's what the Saudis seem to be preparing for.

In what has been a bruising couple of days in the world of terrorism more details have begun to emerge of Friday's attack in Sousse, Tunisia. Essentially a lone gunman - 23-year-old Tunisian engineering graduate Seifeddine Rezgui - walked along a beach shooting all the white people or other people he could immediately identify as non-Muslim before being shot and killed by the police. The entire attack lasted 8 minutes. However it has left 38 people dead.

With many of those killed not carrying identity documents and with entire families being killed not all of the dead have yet been identified. However the majority of them were from Germany, Belgium, Ireland and the UK. With 15 Britons confirmed killed in terms of British loss of life this has been the worst terrorist attack since the 7/7/05 attacks on the London Underground rail network. Coincidentally the 10th anniversary of those attacks take place in just 9 days time. I for one will be getting all nostalgic for the good old days when Al Qaeda were in charge of Islamic terrorism. After all in this brave new world we've created even the US are classing them as the "moderates."

In response to such a significant loss of life many people here in the UK - particularly on TV news - are questioning how Islamic terrorism came to strike in Tunisia. Sadly the answers are all to easily understood and well rehearsed;

On December 17th 2010 a 26 year old Tunisian man by the name of Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest in the city of Sidi Bouzid - around 150km (90 miles) south-west of Sousse. This triggered protests that eventually brought down the Tunisian government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali marking the start of what became known as "The Arab Spring." Despite what the US has frequently claimed Bouazizi did not do this because Rihanna, Jay Z and Kanye West had released as song called "Run This Town." Instead it was the result of years of frustration brought about by Tunisia's failing economy which was churning out ever increasing numbers of highly educated young people without jobs for them to go into.

In Arab society if you can't get a job then you can't buy a house. If you can't buy a house then you can't get married. If you can't get married then you can't have sex. As a result Tunisia and it's near neighbour Egypt were producing lots and lots of extremely angry young men. And a fair few frustrated young women. Many of these people channelled their anger into trying something positive such as organising peaceful protests to force their oppressive Presidents to step down to clear the way for more equitable, democratic societies. Others though turned their anger inwards and fell into depression and the nihilism of suicide and drug abuse. That second group are prime recruits for ISIL.

When it was decided that the President of Tunisia's neighbour Libya - Muammar Qaddafi - was to be overthrown this recruitment was massively increased to provide soldiers for the fight. Led by members of the British SAS it was Tunisian recruits fighting under the banner of the Zintan Brigade militia that finally swept into Tripoli in August 2011. Eventually they proceeded to oust Libya's democratically elected government who are currently forced to reside in the eastern city Tobruk. Once Qaddafi had gone Pegasus again clomped his hooves and these fighters were thrown like thunderbolts into Syria. With ISIL coming under pressure in Syria and looking to establish themselves in Libya these fighters are returning to Tunisia in ever increasing numbers. If anything they only seem to have become angrier.

I will attempt to address Friday's (26/6/15) terror attack in France separately tomorrow. This is not because I think the incident is in any way more or less important. It's just that I see the attacks in Kobane, Kuwait and Tunisia as closely held parts of a conspiracy. I see the French attack as more of a franchise carried out by a guy who has largely been inspired by things he's seen on TV and on the Internet who has almost unilaterally decided to attack a target he is familar with. Explaining that is more complicated.

We are of course still waiting for the titular head of the anti-ISIL coalition - US President Barack Obama - to address these recent attacks. However yesterday his campaign team did decide to Tweet out a picture of a beach joyously urging supporters to; "Organise for Paradise on the Beach.!"

18:15 on 28/6/15 (UK date).