Operation Featherweight: Month 12, Week 1, Day 4.

In response to Friday's (26/5/16) terror attack in Tunisia that is believed to have killed 30 Britons there have been suggestions that the UK expands it's air campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to include targets within Syria. Although it's clear that something has to be done in response I have to say that this particular suggestion strikes me as a very bad idea.

For the most part the US-led coalition air campaign - particularly in Syria - has fitted into what is known as strategic bombing. The principle behind this idea is that if you bomb an enemy's infrastructure such as it's factories, power plants, roads, railways etc it will cause so much disruption to the way their society operates that the society will collapse in on itself rendering the enemy unable to fight. The idea was pioneered during the Second World War by Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) under the command of Arthur "Bomber" Harris and led to things like the 1945 bombing of Dresden in which some 25,000 German civilians were killed in two days of air-strikes. It was also used extensively by the US during the Vietnam war particularly against what was termed the "Ho Chi Minh Trail."

On both of these occasions strategic bombing failed and I can't immediately think of an example where it has ever succeeded. As such I've long thought that the US is only employing strategic bombing against ISIL because they know full well that it won't work. However it does give the public the impression that the US is trying really hard to defeat ISIL it's just that the Syrian and Iraqi governments are so evil they make ISIL too strong to defeat. Therefore I think that Britain is likely to do more damage to ISIL by continuing to very pointedly refuse to engage in the US' campaign in Syria until the US comes up with a better strategy.

If ISIL are to be defeated there needs to be a force on the ground to go in and forcibly remove ISIL from the territory that they occupy. The role of the coalition's air-power is to provide close air-support to this ground force. If the US-led coalition is going to continue to refuse to work with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria then finding a ground force to support is going to be extremely challenging.

Even after decades of experience in fighting asymmetric warfare in places such as Vietnam, Afghanistan and even Northern Ireland it is next to impossible to talk about the conflict in Syria in terms of competing armies. If anything it functions more like the street gangs you see operating in places like the US and the UK. That is to say that you have a patchwork of different armed groups. Some fight on the orders of wealthy benefactors while others fight for control of smuggling routes and areas with large local populations that can be taxed for profit. Discipline is almost completely lacking amongst these armed groups meaning not only that allies can fall out with each other almost at the drop of a hat but it's also quite common for members to leave one group in order to join up with a completely different group.

A few months ago I tried bringing some order to the chaos by talking about the main coalitions of these different groups. Alongside ISIL, the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF) and the Syrian government most groups could be divided into either the Islamic Front (IF) or the Free Syrian Army (FSA) coalitions. The FSA coalition was made up of the most secular groups while the IF was made up of Islamist groups like the the Islamic Movement of Freemen of the Levant/Ahrar ash-Sham (FML) and the Brigade of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI) who share much of ISIL's ideology but have avoided formally allying themselves with the group on the advice of their benefactors. Saudi Arabia in particular has given a lot of assistance to the FML.

Since then the situation has changed with the FSA almost entirely disappearing. They do have a small presence fighting alongside the YPG which is known as the "Euphrates Volcano (Burkan al-Firat)" and it's important not to overlook their contribution. However I think it is obvious to all that the YPG are the senior partner in that relationship. Groups who were once part of the FSA have since gone on to join members of the IF to form a larger coalition which is known as the "Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF)." It is this group that the US-led coalition is now training and equipping in Turkey and Jordan. The JAF coalition is headed by Al Qaeda's ANF.

In terms of territory held and areas of operation ISIL's main presence is centred around the Euphrates River. They used to hold everything to the north-east of the country before the YPG pushed them back. The centre of the country is still held by Syrian government forces who control most of the country. The JAF are mainly centred around the north-west of the country in Idlib and Aleppo provinces and with increased levels of support from the US-led coalition have been making progress advancing on Latika province.

Although they are supposed to be fighting ISIL the JAF enjoy a close enough relationship with them to move across their territory to operate in south of the country even getting as far as the outskirts of the capital Damascus. You may remember that back in April the JAF colluded with ISIL to allow ISIL to enter the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in the Damascus suburbs in order to wipe out the Palestinian Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis (ABM) group who are opposed to JAF.

The situation in the south-west of Syria along the borders with Jordan and Israel including the Golan Heights is even more complicated. Up until a few weeks ago this really was the last hold-out of the FSA coalition. However recently the groups there have began to co-operate with the JAF if not quite fully joining the coalition. On June 15th (15/6/15) the previously FSA groups and the JAF groups in the area entered the village of Khadar which is home to members of the Druze religious minority group. They proceeded to massacre dozens of civilians.

At this point Israel made it quite clear that this was a red line for them and if the massacres continued Israel would enter Syria to establish a safe haven for the Druze in order to fulfil their obligation both to Israel's Druze population and their international obligation to prevent genocide. As it is extremely unlikely that Israel and it's well equipped army would follow the US's softly, softly approach in doing this the previously FSA groups suddenly reconsidered their relationship with JAF and officially separated from them - particularly the JAI who were blamed for the massacre.

Today JAI took the unprecedented step of releasing a 20 minute ISIL-style execution video. The twist though was that the 18 people being executed are alleged to be ISIL members. This is clearly a publicity stunt intended to reassure sceptics that the JAF - of which the JAI are part - are committed to fighting ISIL rather then being allied to them. However the reasons given for the executions is that ISIL are not radical enough in their sectarian hatred of Shia Muslims and that ISIL have betrayed Sunni Muslims by allying themselves with the Syrian government. This is obviously an attempt to boost support for the JAF's objective of overthrowing the Syrian government by further contributing to the oft-repeated but completely untrue conspiracy theory that ISIL are allies of the Syrian government in the hope of confusing ISIL's crimes with the actions of the Syrian government.

So as I've said on numerous occasion the US-led coalition must stop arming and training Syria's insurgent groups because their ideology is too extreme and they simply cannot be trusted. Also while we may not like it the Syrian government has a vital role to play in the defeat of ISIL by disrupting all the different armed groups communicating with each other.

If the Syrian government falls before ISIL are defeated it is likely that ISIL will formally ally themselves with the JAF and all but the most extreme members of the coalition with be wiped out. When that happens the US-led coalition will find itself in the extremely difficult position of fighting groups that it has armed and trained in order to ensure that ISIL are completely wiped out. In short this is unlikely to be possible.

16:10 on 1/7/15 (UK date).