Ideally I would have liked to have blocked off a couple of days to concentrate on climate change issues. After all it turns out that building a mutually beneficial consensus between nations requires a very different mindset to war.
Unfortunately events on the ground didn't allow me that opportunity so I have to write a quick and almost disrespectfully brief update.
It is well established that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) main base of operations is the Syrian city of Raqqa which sits on the banks of the Euphrates River almost in the centre of the north of the country.
On June 15th (15/6/15) the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) succeeded in liberating the town of Tel Abyad which sits on the border with Turkey some 90km (53 miles) to the north of Raqqa. Tel Abyad is the mouth of ISIL's main supply route between Turkey and Raqqa. From Tel Abyad the YPG swiftly moved on to liberate the village of Ain Issa which sits just 50km (30 miles) north of Raqqa. Over the weekend the YPG liberated villages in the south-east of the Kobane Canton further cutting one of ISIL's supply routes between Raqqa and Aleppo which sits around 90km (53 miles) to the west. Obviously it is not my role to explain to ISIL what the YPG's plan may or may not be. However it's is clear that ISIL have viewed these recent gains as preparation for the YPG to sweep in and liberate Raqqa from ISIL.
On Saturday (4/7/15) through to Sunday (5/7/15) the US-led coalition carried out a series of relatively intense air-strikes against Raqqa. This operation was a textbook example of strategic bombing. Of the 18 strikes 16 of them destroyed bridges in and around Raqqa with the clear and stated intent to cripple ISIL's ability to move around the city. This came two days after the UK Parliament debated joining the air-strikes in Syria in response to the June 26th (26/6/15) terror attack in Tunisia which killed 30 British citizens. As such it seemed to be a completely political move on the part of the US intended to encourage the UK to join in with the bombing of Syria in the hope of adding fresh momentum to a morally and strategically questionable campaign which has been running out of support of late.
As is almost the objective of strategic bombing these strikes also had a negative impact on Raqqa's civilian population who are now unable to use those 16 bridges to travel to work, shops, hospital appointments etc. As it is what humans do it seems extremely likely that these civilians will blame the US-led coalition for this disruption to their lives playing into ISIL's narrative that the US is at war with all Muslims. This will increase support for ISIL - particularly in Raqqa. To make matters worse the strikes also killed around 6 civilians including children.
Given the significant impact on Raqqa's civilians along with the clear political rather then military motive behind these air-strikes I would say that they bordered dangerously close to terrorism.
The strikes also fed ISIL's belief that a YPG assault on Raqqa from Ain Issa was imminent. However the clearly did nothing to inhibit ISIL's ability to move so yesterday they launched an offensive to capture Ain Issa from the YPG. Despite provoking it the US-led coalition gave the YPG no prior warning that this offensive was about to take place and failed to provide air-support to resist it. As a result ISIL succeeded in capturing Ain Issa from the YPG. Although this is clearly not a defeat for ISIL and I would have preferred the YPG to hold Ain Issa it is not a huge village so this isn't a massive set back. It is one the coalition could have done without though
In terms of the fight against ISIL in Iraq it's on hold. Neither the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) nor the Kurdish Peshmerga are engaged in any offensive operations to dislodge ISIL from any territory. I can't say that this is a wholly bad thing because a lot of the ISF's problems stem from attempting more then they can achieve with the Shia-Arab Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) militia being a particular problem. Being a militia rather then a regular military unit and contrary to popular myth not being controlled by Iran the PMF have a tendency to be rather hot headed constantly rushing from one battle to another. For example after liberating Tikrit city rather then consolidating their position by liberating areas around the city the PMF charged off into Ramadi contributing to the fall of the city. The area around Tikrit remains significantly unstable.
Unfortunately rather then using this pause to work with the ISF and the PMF to tighten up their operations the US under President Barack Obama is continuing to invent reasons to prevent the Iraqis fighting ISIL. For example the US is slowly committing ever more ground troops to Iraq and moving them closer to the front-line in Vietnam-style "Lillypad" bases from where they can act as forward air controllers directing air-strikes. Quite why the US can't train Iraqi troops to preform this role is a bit beyond me. After all even UK Prince Harry managed it in Afghanistan.
More worryingly the US now seems to have mandated that no Iraqi may fight a member of ISIL until a national guard force of Iraq's Sunni-Arabs has been created. Apart from the fact that this is going to take ages if anything it is likely to make the PMF more hot-headed. Iraq is a majority Shia-Arab nation but the US-led coalition refuses to accept this seeming to demand that the Sunni minority are placed in charge of the nation. This has led to a belief by the PMF that the US is trying to break the nation up into a Sunni section, a Shia section and a Kurdish section. As such the PMF are rushing to defeat ISIL before this can happen.
Building up an armed Sunni state within a state is certainly doing nothing to reassure the PMF and seems to be granting legitimacy to their fears. In his letter to Congress over the arming of the Peshmerga US Secretary of State John Kerry himself made clear that this will undermine the fight against ISIL.
09:25 on 7/7/15 (UK date).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment