Operation Featherweight: Month 12, Week 3, Day 7.

In my post yesterday I wrote about how the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had shifted their focus in northern Syria away from fighting the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) towards capturing sections of the city of Hasakah - which sits at the southern border of the Kurdish Cizire Canton - from Syrian government forces. Having established a presence in the city ISIL would then move to attack the YPG held sections of Hasakah and the wider canton.

What I perhaps failed to make clear is that this shift began in mid-June and since then there has been often quite complex battles within Hasakah between ISIL and Syrian government and ISIL and the YPG. One particularly troubling confrontation occurred on June 28th (28/6/15) when ISIL fired shells into the heavily populated Salahya neighbourhood which was and remains under YPG control. On the same day ISIL also shelled YPG positions in the town of Tel Brak which sits around 25km (15 miles) north-east of Hasakah. 

On both of these occasions when the shells exploded they released a cloud of yellowish gas and a greenish liquid both of which smelled heavily of sulphur. Those exposed to either the liquid or the gas immediately began to experience a burning sensation to their eyes, nose and throat along with headaches and mild neurological impairment. Those who were exposed for a greater length of time also began to vomit. Fortunately all those exposed were immediately admitted to hospital and their symptoms passed without loss of life or significant, immediate injury.

ISIL's use of chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq is both common and widespread. In writing about the liberation of the Iraqi city of Tikrit and the Shingal/Sinjar region of Iraq's Kurdish north I've often wrote about how progress has been slowed by the need to defuse a large number of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's). What has further complicated the effort is that a significant proportion of these IED's have been constructed to release a cloud of Chlorine gas when detonated. This of course makes it extremely risky to defuse these IED's by using a controlled detonation.

However what we appear to have seen in Hasakah and in Kobane City towards the end of 2014 is the use by ISIL of some variant of Sulphur Mustard Gas. Unlike Chlorine which is classed as an irritant like tear gas rather then a poison and is widely used in swimming pools and homes Mustard Gas compounds are considered Schedule 1 Chemical Weapons - the most serious - under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention and their use is classed as a war crime and strictly forbidden under the Geneva Conventions.

To their credit because they lack the resources to fully identify the exact chemical agent used the YPG have yet to formally accuse ISIL of using Mustard Gas. However they are continuing to work with organisations such as Conflict Armament Research (CAR) the identify the agent used and have captured industrial gas masks and other protective equipment for ISIL forces in the area which would suggest co-ordinated preparations to engage in chemical warfare. It is not year clear if the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) who are been very active in Syria are currently investigating the incident.

Having been extremely busy with things that I'd been putting off for far too long you may have noticed that it's been quite some time since I gave a proper update on the situation in Iraq. The main reason why I've felt comfortable in doing this is that there has actually been very little going on. 

In mid-June the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) including the Shia militias known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) halted offensive operations in Anbar province particularly around the city of Ramadi which sits around 100km (60 miles) to the west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. On July 2nd (2/7/15) the ISF claimed that the town of Baiji which sits around 280km (170 miles) north of Baghdad and around 50km (30 miles) north of the city of Tikrit had been liberated from ISIL. However reports of clashes with pockets of resistance continue. The ISF has so far not been able to liberate the major oil refinery which sits just outside Baiji.

The main reason behind this lack of progress is that the US-led coalition continues to delay, disrupt and thwart any attempt by the ISF to liberate their territory from ISIL. The most overt element of these attempts to hinder the ISF has been the delays over the delivery of 36 F-16 multi-role fighter aircraft that Iraq ordered from the US way back in 2011.

Obviously you don't just buy a fleet of F-16's off the shelf. Instead normally a deposit is paid when the order is placed and the contract lays out a timetable where future payments are made in accordance with progress in building the aircraft. Almost from the moment the order was placed the US have used the aircraft as a largely unsuccessful way to blackmail the Iraqi government into doing as it is told. As a result the contract hasn't progressed anywhere near as far as it should so I can't strictly say that Iraq has paid for the aircraft but the delay is certainly on the US side rather then Iraq's inability to pay.

You would think that with ISIL overrunning large sections of Iraq in the summer of 2014 and the US being forced to deploy its own F-16's and pilots to Iraq in an effort to stop them the US would perhaps stop delaying delivery. However the US has done the complete opposite started delaying delivery even further. For the most part the reason given for refusing to hand over the aircraft was a concern that the situation on the ground was not secure enough to prevent them falling into the hands of ISIL. This is while US aircraft continue to operate from bases within Iraq. However at one point the US even delayed the contract on the grounds that the aircraft may be used against opposition groups within Iraq. Such as ISIL.

Part of this particular contract sees Iraqi pilots being trained how to operate F-16's within the US. This is what was happening on June 25th (26/6/15) when an F-16 crashed in Arizona, US. The pilot - an Iraqi General - was killed. This type of training accident is normally the sort of thing that sees the entire production contract suspended until it can be determined whether the pilot or the aircraft was at fault. The fact the crash occurred closed to a natural gas transit pipeline seemed to be a reference to Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government's (KRG) sale of natural gas via Turkey in a further effort to infuriate the Iraqi government.

Then on July 7th (7/7/15) another F-16 this time operated entirely by the US Air Force (USAF) collided with a Cessna C150 near Charleston, South Carolina killing the two civilians in the Cessna. Hidden amongst all the controversy of the Charleston shooting that occurred little more then two weeks previously this seemed to be a reference to the fact that with the US refusing to deliver the F-16's as ordered the Iraqis have been forced to rely on aircraft such as Cessna's which are in no way suitable for the task.

I suppose then we should all be extremely grateful that the US finally allowed the delivery of 4 of the 36 F-16's on Tuesday (14/7/15).

The other most significant and perhaps most dangerous delaying tactic the US has deployed in the fight against ISIL in Iraq has been US President Obama's desire to establish a Sunni National Guard Force. Obviously creating such a force creates a delay of at least six months to a year before anyone is permitted to do any actual fighting. However it also increases sectarian tension creating the sort of political chaos that prevents Iraq from putting together a united front to defeat ISIL.

Although I really do need to find the time to learn more about Anbar's specific Sunni tribes and the people who lead them rather then clumsily tarring them all with the same brush a significant part of the reason why ISIL was able to advance so far into Anbar so fast is that many of the Sunni tribes sided with ISIL over the Shia dominated country and it's national government. 

In much the same way that the Tuaregs in Mali initially sided with Islamist groups such Ansar Dine and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) Anbar's Sunni tribes saw an allegiance with ISIL as a way to pressure the Iraqi government into meeting their demands - mainly for increased autonomy and direct payments. Again as with the Tuaregs in Mali the Sunni tribes quickly discovered that ISIL had no interest in sharing power or furthering any cause but their own. As a result almost all of Anbar's Sunni tribes have now shifted their allegiance back to the Iraqi government and share it's desire to defeat ISIL.

Obviously I think that those Sunni tribes who have realised the truth of what ISIL are about should be provided with a route back into mainstream Iraqi society. However it should be clear to all that there are significant trust issues between Iraq's Shia majority and the Sunni tribes that sided with ISIL and it will take time for that trust to be restored. 

Obama's plan will see effectively see a Sunni army being created within Iraq's western province. The Iraqi government is obviously entitled to be a little concerned that this army will start to act as a state within a state and either attempt to blackmail the rest of the country by threatening civil war or breakaway entirely. As such it is possibly the worst thing to do at a time when there is a clear need to build trust and with it cohesion within Iraqi society.

The fear that Obama is building up a Sunni force in a clumsy effort to break Iraq apart into the much talked about Sunni-stan,  Shia-stan and Kurdi-stan is likely what prompted the PMF to force the wider ISF into - on Monday (13/7/15) - launching an operation to liberate both Ramadi  and Fallujah which sits roughly halfway between Ramadi and Baghdad. 

As I've said on numerous occasions fighting and liberating large urban areas such as cities is one of the toughest thing a military force will do with the fighting often being extremely slow and extremely close up. The thought of trying to liberate two cities at the same time is almost unfathomable and it failed back in September 2014 and failed again in May this year leading to the ISF being forced completely from Ramadi. At the same time I do not consider the Tikrit operation to be fully complete until Baiji and it's refinery have been liberated and linked up with Kirkuk. As such while now it has started I am under an obligation to support this Anbar operation I think it would have made more sense for the ISF to focus on completing the Tikrit operation before taking on such a large new challenge. 

The US-led coalition though has had no qualms in supporting the Anbar offensive and if anything seem to be encouraging the ISF by providing them with all the air-support they could possibly need. In the meantime ISIL have continued to stage attacks against both Kirkuk and Baiji. 

ISIL's immediate response to this new Anbar offensive has been to carry out large and frequent suicide bombings in Shia neighbourhoods in and around Baghdad. The most significant of these occurred yesterday on the first day of Eid in the town of Kahn Bani Saad which sits around 25km (15 miles) north of Baghdad's infamous Sadr City district. It appears that a truck purporting to sell ice drove into a market full of people shopping to celebrate the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Once it had gathered a large crowd with it's promises of low prices the truck bomb was detonated killing 120 civilians and injuring over 400 more.

The purpose of these gruesome ISIL attacks on Iraq's Shia's is to provoke the PMF to retaliate by intensifying the Anbar operation. With Sunnis in Ramadi and Fallujah with ISIL guns to their heads already being forced to issue false and exaggerated claims of deaths and injuries from air-strikes the intention being to make Sunnis in Iraq and Syria so afraid of ISIL enemies that they will side with ISIL making it much harder to defeat the group.

21:45 on 18/7/15 (UK date).