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

Recently the fight between the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has been relatively quiet.

On July 27th (27/7/15) the YPG succeeded on liberating the town of Sarrin which sits on the banks of the Euphrates River at the western edge of the 33,000km^2 (20,000mile^2) buffer zone that Kurdish forces have created across northern Syria and Iraq all the way to Iraq's border with Iran. On August 1st (1/8/15) the YPG succeeded in repelling a 39 day ISIL assault on the city of Hasakah which makes up the southern boundary of the buffer zone some 55km (34 miles) from Syria's border with Iraq.

Following the completion of those two big operations both sides have really been licking their wounds and considering their next move. Contrary to allegations of ethnic cleansing made by Turkey civilians of all ethnic groups have slowly been returning to Sarrin now that it has been cleared of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) left by ISIL and made safe.

The big uncertainty overshadowing operations in northern Syria remains Turkey's plan to invade the area to establish what it claims will be a buffer zone for civilians. As the US has yet to fully reject this plan negotiations of how to best put it into practice are ongoing. For example the US is making the entirely reasonable request that if Turkey wants to conduct air-operations in air-space controlled by the US-led coalition it will have to submit to the coalition's command and control structure. 

In an effort to hustle the US into giving the plan to go ahead Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken to issuing numerous public statements announcing that a plan has been agreed and it could go into action at any day.

Likely as a way to show their frustration at the slow pace of negotiations Turkey yesterday (20/8/15) launched air-strikes against what they claim were Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) positions in the Dohuk are of northern Iraq. These were the first Turkish air-strikes against Iraq since the start of the month and seem to be a clear challenge to the international community to take action to stop Turkey acting unilaterally. 

Of course Turkey will claim that the strikes were carried out in response to a PKK roadside bomb that killed 8 Turkish soldiers in Turkey's south-eastern province of Siirt on Wednesday (19/8/15). With Turkey using such PKK attacks as an excuse to launch attacks against Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq it can be quite difficult to explain why these attacks are continuing. 

However in their more then 30 year quest for independence the PKK have secured something of a de facto Kurdish state in south-eastern Turkey where although it exists the writ of the Turkish state is not strong. Turkey's supposed crackdown on both the PKK and ISIL has largely involved swamping this Kurdish area with large numbers of security troops. As such the PKK - rightly or wrongly - feel that they need to carry out the type of ambush seen on Wednesday in order to stop the Turkish security forces establishing full control over the area weakening the PKK's position in any future peace negotiations.

The uncertainty over any potential Turkish involvement in the war in Syria is further complicated by the inevitable role that it will play in negotiations over the formation of a coalition government in Turkey or, as now seems inevitable, Turkey's upcoming election. 

The mandate given to the Islamist Justice & Development Party (AKP) formally expires on Sunday (23/8/15). If AKP fail to form a coalition by then what should happen is that the second place Republican People's Party (CHP) are given an opportunity to form a coalition. However this seems unlikely because that coalition would have to include both the Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) and the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Due to the recent crackdown and the resumption of PKK attacks it provoked the MHP simply will not work with the HDP.

What the Turkish Parliament can do instead is meet to form a caretaker government made up of all the elected parties and call for fresh elections. The leader of the AKP and current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has today come out and declared that he will instead be ordering a fresh round of elections on November 1st (1/11/15). There is still some debate whether he has the authority to do this but with the HDP and MHP being unlikely to form a coalition it seems that regardless of whether proper Parliamentary procedure is followed Turkey will be holding a fresh election on November 1st.

In Syria's south-west the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad yesterday fired four rockets into the Israel occupied Golan Heights and beyond into Israel proper. Israel responded with artillery fire and air-strikes against Islamic Jihad positions in Syria. Due to the state of war that has existed between Israel and Syria since 1967 this is all technically legal.

This confrontation seems to stem from the case of Mohammed Allan - an Islamic Jihad member - who as been staging a 63-day hunger strike to protest against his detention without trial in Israel. Although due to taking time off I can't say I've been following the story in a huge amount of detail over the last week or so Allan's health deteriorated dramatically to the point where he slipped into a coma. Islamic Jihad responded to this by warning that if Allan died it would trigger a full military response by them against Israel. Following medical tests on Tuesday that show Allan to be brain damaged an Israeli Court today ruled that he is no longer a security threat and suspended his arrest warrant technically freeing him from detention.

In terms of what has been going on in the fight against ISIL in Iraq I am still largely in the dark. This is because unlike the YPG the Iraq government doesn't have a press office issuing regular updates and unlike with the Battle of Kobane I've not been able to build up a network of sources on the ground who have proved themselves to be trustworthy. Provided no new crisis emerges over the coming days I will endeavour to improve my understanding of the progress of the Anbar offensive.

This is unlikely to be made much easier by the fact the Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - the formal name for the US-led coalition - has decided that it doesn't want me reading it's Twitter updates so has once again taken the trouble to block me.

15:15 on 21/8/15 (UK date).