Operation Featherweight: Month 15, Week 2, Day 7.

On September 30th (30/9/15) Russia began offensive military operations in Syria during the opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Although this was entirely predictable its effect was similar to an earthquake shaking the diplomatic world to its core.

So dramatic was the response that last Friday (2/10/15) evening I started to feel as though I was losing my mind. Much worse then that I kind of got the impression that everybody else was to.

Since then Russia has made clear that the purpose of its operation is to provide air support to the Syrian government. They did this by providing air support to a Syrian government offensive on Tuesday (6/10/15). Also on Tuesday Russia made clear that it will be using cruise-type missiles in its operation by using cruise-type missiles in the operation.

The inevitable Turkish protest and attempts to get NATO to go to war with Russia to protect the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were of course dealt with and put out of the way on Monday (5/10/15).

Although there is an old adage that no plan survives battle we now seem to be at the point where everybody has re-calibrated their expectations and the fight against ISIL is establishing a new rhythm.

For example just last night (9/10/15) the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - finally agreed to what are termed "De-Confliction Meetings" with Russia to make sure that the two operations over Syria do not lead to a wider confrontation. Those meetings have already taken place today (10/10/15).

This hasn't come a moment too soon because on Thursday (8/10/15) the US announced that it had to divert an aircraft to avoid a "near-miss" with a Russian aircraft.

What they perhaps made less clear is that for military operations over Syria the melodramatic definition of "near-miss" that the US is using is; "within 32km (20 miles)." The internationally used civilian definition of "near-miss" is; "within 1km (0.6 miles)."

However due to the current state of flux there isn't really a single, over-riding narrative to this update such much as a series of unrelated events that need to be dealt with.

To the west of Syria the Syrian government's operation on the border between Latakia, Idlib, Hama and Homs provinces has already started to make progress.

Yesterday (9/10/15) they liberated the village of Al-Bahsa which sits about 16km (9.5 miles) north of the City of Homs and around 36km (22 miles) south of the City of Hama. The village had previously been under the occupation of the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition - specifically the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF).

Upon entering Al-Bahsa Syrian government forces uncovered dozens of decomposing bodies all of whom had their hands tied and had been shot in an apparent massacre.

The Syrian government operation has suffered something of a set-back in Aleppo province with ISIL today seizing several villages on the northern out-skirts of the City of Aleppo putting them within 1.2 (0.75 miles) of Syrian government positions in the city. As part of this battle on Friday (9/10/15) Brig. Gen. Hossein Hamedani of Iran's Revolutionary Guard was killed.

I suspect that the US would have liked to celebrate the death of Brig, Gen. Hamedani more loudly. However in order to do so the US would have been forced to admit not only that the Syrian government is still in control of sections of Aleppo but also that far from being their ally it is fighting ISIL on a daily basis and has been for many years.

In different section of Aleppo City - the Sheikh Maqsood and Bustan al-Pasha neighbourhoods - the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) are engaged in daily battles with JAF. 

For the most part this has been the JAF - specifically ANF - launching probing attacks on YPG positions in Sheikh Maqsood which are repelled by the YPG. 

However over recent days the YPG have also been able to conduct a series of commando-style raids against JAF positions in Bustan al-Pasha  killing two JAF fighters on Wednesday (7/10/15) and a further 3 JAF fighters along with their vehicle of Friday (9/10/15).

Further to the north-east the YPG continues to be harassed by ISIL on the borders of the buffer-zone it has established. 

On Friday (9/10/15) the YPG launched a pre-emptive raid that disrupted an ISIL attack on the village of Sarrin which marks the western border of the buffer-zone on the Euphrates River.

On Wednesday (7/10/15) and Thursday (8/10/15) the YPG repelled repeated attacks on the village of Ain Issa which sits on the southern border of the buzzer-zone just 50km (30 miles) north of ISIL de facto capital in Syria Raqqa.

On Tuesday (6/10/15) the YPG repelled an ISIL attack on the town of Tel Abyad (Gire Spi) which sits on the buffer-zone's northern border mid-way between Serekanyie and Kobane City. 

This attack was particularly worrying because Tel Abyad sits around 40km (25 miles) behind the nearest front-line with ISIL. Therefore while there are not a lot of details available the suspicion is that this attack originated to the north of Tel Abyad from within Turkey.

Unfortunately as they are continuing to block me on Twitter I cannot tell if CJTFOIR provided the YPG with air-support to repel these ISIL attacks or whether CJTFOIR is continuing to operate it's protective dome over ISIL positions in the area.

Elsewhere in the YPG controlled section of the 33,000km^2 (20,000mile^2) buffer-zone things remain relatively quiet. The main work seems to be centred around rebuilding homes and schools and assisting the return of refugees to their homes.

The main development of the last couple of days came yesterday (9/10/15) with the announcement that just 8 days after US President Barack Obama signed an order renewing it the US is suspending it's "Train & Equip" program for what is termed the "The Syrian-Arab Opposition."

Obviously it would be hugely politically embarrassing for President Obama to admit that his strategy to fight ISIL has been a complete failure and after 14 months he's been forced to abandon it under pressure from both the US military and the US' coalition partners within CJTFOIR. 

So instead on a visit to London, UK US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter announced that the program is to be "paused" while it is "refined and adjusted." 

In terms of what those refinements and adjustments will be the US has only spoken in general terms about providing ammunition and "manouvering advice" to moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces in northern Syria. These are to be provided at a much smaller centre in Turkey while the existing, larger centres in Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are to be closed.

By some estimates there are 7,000 different insurgent groups currently operating in Syria excluding the YPG and militias allied to the Syrian government such as Lebanon's Hezbollah. Although it might not make that much sense to the average man on the street these different groups are best thought of as inner-city crime gangs such as you get in places such as Los Angeles, US. 

Essentially this means that they all fight for their own little neighbourhoods and there is very little co-ordination or shared leadership amid shifting allegiances. It is this type of group we talk about when we refer to the FSA which is actually a spectacularly unhelpful term in trying to explain the situation in Syria.

Many of the little gangs that make up the FSA coalition are just as evil as ISIL. Across the north-west and south-west of Syria the FSA are an active part of the JAF coalition alongside ANF and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham). 

For example the FSA happily participated in JAF's north-western offensive that captured Jisr al-Shughur while at the same time the FSA were happily massacring Druze civilians in villages in the Syrian Golan Heights.

However up in Syria's north there are more moderate groups of the FSA. For example there's the Euphrates Volcano/Burkan al-Furat which works hand-in-hand with the YPG and is so close to them in the fight against ISIL I often forget to give them the credit they are due by simply referring to the YPG in an effort to save time. It is this type of group that the US seems to be adjusting Train & Equip towards.

I personally think that the US should have handled this announcement in the same way that you would rip off a Band-Aid. That is to say the US should have announced that it will be throwing its full support behind the YPG. Turkey could then either end its support for ISIL including demands for a safe-zone and that CJTFOIR provide them with this protective dome or face the consequences.

Unfortunately President Obama has done his usual indecisive thing of leading Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan to believe that things can still be negotiated and he can continue to train and equip what he considers to be the 'moderate' opposition. This is likely to lead to indecisive negotiations all the way until Turkey's November 1st (1/11/15) General Election and beyond.

Today we saw the first round of these discussions with twin suicide bombings striking a peace rally organised by the People's Democrat Party (HDP) that killed 97 Kurds and wounded 400 more in the Turkish capital of Ankara. 

This is Turkey very clearly sending the message to the US that if it supports Kurdish forces such as the YPG in the fight against ISIL then Turkey will simply attack the Kurds.

At the domestic level though it is also an attempt by Erdogan's Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) - and probably at this point supporters of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) - to improve their chances at the November 1st election.

You may remember that Turkey's first General Election of 2015 was held on June 7th (7/6/15). Here AKP's objective was to secure more then 60% of the vote to allow them to change the constitution to grant Erdogan executive power as President without a public referendum. Failing that they wanted to win a simple majority to allow them to present the constitutional changes to a public vote.

The people of Turkey saw things differently and AKP failed to even secure a simple majority effectively ending Erdogan's grip on the country. This led to a hung Parliament and without AKP ministers to tell them otherwise Turkey's security services began a crackdown on ISIL.

On July 20th (20/7/15) ISIL bombed the meeting of a youth group in the predominately Kurdish town of Suruc in plea for attention and mercy. With the assistance of President Obama Erdogan rapidly answered this plea and announced he was starting a war on terror against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Since then Erdogan has been using tanks, artillery and warplanes to attack Kurdish areas in Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

Erdogan's first objective here was to take the pressure off ISIL by convincing the people of Turkey that the Kurds were the bigger threat then ISIL. It also allowed Erdogan to tempt MHP with the prospect of an AKP/MHP coalition provided they could both chip enough support away from the HDP.

Most importantly though it allowed Erdogan to wrap himself in the flag and portray himself as the protector of the Turkish people who face being utterly destroyed without his AKP.

Amongst AKP supporters the ISIL bombing in Suruc is viewed as the first act in their war against terrorism - meaning Kurdish terrorism. So although no-one says it explicitly the implication has long been that the Suruc bombing wasn't an ISIL bombing but the Kurds attacking themselves. Obviously the hope is that today's Ankara bombing will be viewed in the same way by the Turkish electorate.

One thing that will strengthen the conspiracy theory of Kurds attacking Kurds are events across the border in Iraq's autonomous region. At around the same time that the Turkish air-strikes began the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was plunged into chaos amid arguments over whether to extend President Barzani's term or try and hold elections while large sections of Kurdish territory are under ISIL occupation.

As within Libya and Egypt the general consensus to allow Barzani to stay on is being spoilt by the mildly Islamist Goran (Change) Party who are blocking an agreement and trying to force an election. As part of this campaign Goran have been organising mass protests which have occasionally turned violent. 

Today's protests in Sulaymaniyah have been particularly violent with four deaths being reported included 2 MP's belonging to the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP). It must be said though that today's protests only turned violent after the Ankara bombing meaning that they were likely a response to the bombing rather then the bombing being part of the violence.

Turkey is obviously spinning another angle by putting around rumours that it recently stopped suicide bombers from an un-named Iraqi Kurdish Party travelling into Turkey to attack their rivals.

As such I must say that I have been wondering for a while if Nawshirwan Mustafa who started Goran as an AKP-style vehicle for himself has perhaps allowed his head to get turned in his thirst for power.

Going back to Turkey itself it was announced on Thursday (8/10/15) that the PKK are to today (10/10/15) begin a unilateral ceasefire in the run-up to the November 1st election.

The hope seems to have been that today's Ankara bombing would make that impossible meaning that this attack on the HDP would be drowned out in the minds of the Turkish electorate by wave after wave of PKK attacks helping sweep AKP back into power.

Fortunately as far as I can tell the PKK have decided to move ahead with their ceasefire anyway.

21:25 on 10/10/15 (UK date).