Operation Featherweight: Month 13, Week 1, Day 4.

Yesterday (30/7/15) the Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) as the US-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is formally known held a closed door session in Ottawa, Canada. Access to this meeting was so restricted that not even all members of the coalition were permitted to attend. However controversially Turkey was invited despite still not acting as part of the coalition.

Turkey's invitation - at the behest of the US - proved so controversial that on Wednesday (29/7/15) a British Airways flight from Las Vegas, US to London, UK had to be diverted to Montreal, Canada amid a security alert that later proved to be a hoax. This is a form of communication that will be well recognised by the Turks because as Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan's paranoia grew in the run-up to Turkey's June 7th (7/6/15) General Election it became an almost daily event for Turkish airliners.

For example on March 30th (30/3/15) a Turkish Airlines flight from Turkey to Brazil was forced to divert to Casablanca, Morocco after someone found a note with the word "bomb" written on it in one of the aircraft's toilets. The following day another Turkish Airlines flight to Japan had to return to Istanbul after another such note was found and a Turkish Airlines to Portugal also had to return to Istanbul amid another security hoax. These of course all occurred during the Luasanne talks on Iran's nuclear program and the Germanwings crash that dominated them neither of which issue Turkey was party to.

More recently on June 26th (26/6/15) a Turkish Airlines flight from Turkey to New York City, US had to make an emergency landing in Copenhagen, Denmark amid another security hoax. On July 7th (7/7/15) a Turkish Airlines flight from Bangkok, Thailand to Turkey was forced to make an emergency landing in New Delhi, India after someone scrawled the word "bomb" on a toilet mirror in red lipstick. One example of how Erdogan is attempting to turn Turkey into an Islamic State is the 2013 ban on air hostesses for Turkish Airlines wearing red lipstick because it is viewed as too sexually provocative.

However the July 7th incident occurred at a time of heightened tension between Turkey and India's neighbour China after Turkish Islamists began attacking anyone vaguely Asian looking after Erdogan falsely announced that Chinese Muslims were being banned from fasting during Ramadan.

Perhaps recognising the terms of the discussion Turkey took the diversion of the British Airways flight to Canada as a sign that they were not universally welcome at yesterday's coalition meeting. As a result there were absolutely no Turkish air-strikes on Kurdish positions in either Syria or Iraq on Wednesday (29/7/15). If you see, hear or even just suspect that there has been a Turkish air-strike on an ISIL position please report it to the proper authorities.

Unfortunately this dialogue did not result in Turkey's invitation to the CJTF-OIR meeting revoked so yesterday (30/7/15) an emboldened Turkey resumed and intensified its attacks. Starting the late afternoon (local) Turkey conducted 30 air-strikes against the Iraqi province of Dohuk. To put that in perspective yesterday CJTF-OIR only carried out 24 air-strikes against ISIL positions across all of Iraq and Syria.

One of the buildings targeted was a medical clinic/hospital in Amediye which served the civilian population in the surrounding villages of Shinaw and Hiraspi. As is well established under international law medical facilities of this type have special protected status and attacks against them are considered war crimes. Also Turkey has neither permission from the Iraqi government nor an appropriate United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution authorising their military to enter Iraqi sovereign territory making any incursion a gross violation of international law that the UNSC is obligated to take action to prevent.

In my previous post in the subject I pointed out that located just 65km (39 miles) north of the ISIL stronghold of Mosul the Dohuk front-line plays an important role of isolating the city particularly by cutting ISIL's supply lines to Syria at the town of Tel Afar which sits 85km (50 miles) to the south-west. I also pointed out that it is central to the humanitarian safe-zone that has been established for refugees from the Sinjar/Shingal mountains and the Nineveh plains.

This was perhaps an understatement because Dohuk actually contains 4 United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) camps which are home to some 104,000 refugees. Although Turkey has so far refrained from bombing any of these camps if it continues to strike civilian areas surrounding them it is only going to increase the flow of refugees and therefore the pressure on those camps. Erdogan of course likes to use the plight of refugees as leverage in negotiations with CJTF-OIR even going to far as to suggest that the coalition does not care about Arab Muslims.

In launching yesterday's attack on Dohuk the Turkish jets took an unusual and provocative route. Rather then crossing into Iraqi territory from Turkey they instead took off from - I assume - Incirlik airbase and crossed directly into Syrian territory aggressively buzzing all positions of the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and the Arab Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Syria before crossing into Iraq. This obviously caused a level of alarm amongst the YPG/FSA that they were about to come under aeriel attack.

The arrival of the Turkish jets coincided with an ISIL attack on the town of Sarrin which controls the main M4 highway/supply route across the Euphrates River. Fortunately after a battle that lasted throughout the night the YPG/FSA were able to repel this ISIL attack but not before 13 YPG fighters were killed.

Within Turkey Erdogan has wasted no time in using his own war on terror to, yesterday, launch into a fierce personal attack on Selahattin Demirtas - the Kurdish leader of the People's Democratic Party (HDP) telling him that he should "know his place." Erdogan went on to order prosecutors to open an investigation in Mr Demirtas accusing him of supplying weapons to Kurdish militants during rioting in October 2014 that saw 35 people killed following Erdogan's refusal to allow YPG fighters to be re-supplied via Turkish territory during the Battle of Kobane.

You would think that Erdogan would be hesitant to make accusations of illegally supplying weapons to terrorist groups because that has been a very sensitive issue within Turkey recently. In November 2013 and again in January 2014 the Turkish Gendarmerie - a militarised police force that assists both the police and the military - intercepted trucks in the Turkish province of Adana that were packed with advanced weapons such as guided missiles that were en route to the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF) in Syria.

The officers involved probably expected to be congratulated or even rewarded for preventing such weapon shipments being delivered to Al Qaeda. However in April 2015 they were instead all, along with local prosecutors found themselves arrested and put on trial for interfering with an operation of the Turkish intelligence service the MIT.

Erdogan has made his position on the incident quite clear furthering accusing the Gendarmes of being agents of a foreign power who were trying to overthrow the Turkish state. The implication being that they were working on behalf of Abdullah Gul who proceeded Erdogan as Prime Minister for the AKP but whom Erdogan now accuses of being an American spy.

Today while visiting Indonesia Erdogan denied that Turkey is supplying weapons to terror groups in Syria claiming they were examples of black propaganda being circulated by dark forces who wish to overthrow his government. I can only recommend then that he goes back and watches the series of TV interviews of August 2014 in which he made clear that he had ordered the MIT to supply the weapons.

15:35 on 31/7/15 (UK date).