On October 16th (16/10/15) Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian/Syriac forces in the north-east of Syria formalised their Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition.
This is of course made up of the Kurdish People's Protection Forces (YPG/J), Euphrates Volcano/Burkan al-Furat (BAF) and the Revolutionary Army/Jaish al-Thuwar (JAT) fragments of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) along with the Syriac Military Council (MSF) and the Arab tribal force - Al-Sanadid Forces/Jaish al-Sanadid (JAS).
Despite having called for this type of coalition for almost a year now Turkey responded to this by opening fire on the SDF positions on the town of Tel Abyad/Gire Spi. On Saturday (24/10/15) SDF positions in the town came under Turkish mortar and artillery fire. These artillery strikes continued on Sunday (25/10/15), Monday (26/10/15) Tuesday (27/10/15) and today.
SDF positions on the banks of the Euphrates River at the western edge of the SDF controlled buffer-zone also came under Turkish artillery fire on Sunday (25/10/15) and again on Monday (26/10/15). Sunday's attack in which 2 civilians were wounded coincided with a fresh offensive by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) which was fortunately quickly resisted.
You may remember that Tel Abyad is a strategically important town that sits directly on the border with Turkey. It also sits mid-way between the central area that is known as the Kobane Canton and the area to the east which is known as the Cizire Canton.
It was the capture to Tel Abyad by the YPG and BAF in July that united the two cantons establishing the buffer-zone across northern-eastern Syria and Iraq. It also cut off ISIL main supply route between Turkey and their de facto capital of Raqqa around 90km (50 miles) to the south.
As such the purpose of these Turkish attacks seems to be to support ISIL in recapturing Tel Abyad both destroying the buffer-zone and allowing the re-establishment of the the ISIL supply route with Turkey.
The Turkish attacks have been accompanied by renewed ISIL attacks across the buffer-zone's border with a particular focus on the western edge around the town of Sarrin and the southern village of Ain Issa which sits on that supply route between Raqqa and Tel Abyad.
Turkey's official explanation for its actions have been surreal to say the least. According to the office of President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan ISIL, the Syrian government and now the SDF are all secretly in league with each other. The years that these groups have spent fighting each other were all part of an elaborate ruse to hide this vast conspiracy's true purpose of invading Turkey.
These latest attacks on the SDF are apparently necessary because at the end of June this ISIL/SDF/Syrian government held a meeting at which they secretly agreed to hand the area to the north of the Euphrates to the Kurdish dominated SDF.
Putting aside the sheer insanity of the conspiracy theory the problem with this is that the area north of the Euphrates has been predominately Kurdish since the nations of Turkey and Syria were formed nearly a hundred years. The only point at which this looked like changing was during ISIL's offensive into the area at the end of 2014 that was brought to a halt with the Battle of Kobane.
Kurdish forces do not operate to the south of the Euphrates and ISIL are actually located between them and the northern banks of the Euphrates.
It is this utter detachment with reality that is likely driving Erdogan's attempts to silence any critical voices within Turkey.
Just today Turkish security forces carried out raids against TV news channels operated by Koza Ipek taking them off air just three days before Turkey's November 1st (1/11/15) election. Apparently these stations are controlled by Fethullah Gulen who along with ISIL, Syria, the Kurds, the US and the EU is part of this vast anti-Erdogan conspiracy.
The reason why Erdogan feels comfortable about carrying out these attacks against the SDF is that US President Barack Obama - as the Commander-in-Chief of the US-led coalition, Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve - has still not made clear that the SDF controlled buffer-zone is a reality that Erdogan is going to have to learn to accept at least until ISIL are defeated. As a result Erdogan still thinks that the matter is up for discussion.
The US doesn't even seem to be participating in this discussion particularly effectively, Although CJTFOIR continue to block me on Twitter from other sources I know that between Thursday (22/10/15) and Tuesday (27/10/15) CJTFOIR did not carry out a single air-strike anywhere is Syria.
The single air-strike they carried out on Tuesday (27/10/15) was against an ISIL mortar position close to the town of Marea which is around 95km (60 miles) west of Sarrin on the Euphrates and around 25km (15 miles) north of the city of Aleppo. If CJTFOIR can strike ISIL mortar positions there the question is why haven't they been striking the ISIL mortar positions that have been firing on Sarrin.
While CJTFOIR is continuing to fly operations in protection of ISIL in Syria Russia has moved to expand it's operations against ISIL's heartlands around Raqqa. Over the weekend Russia offered to work with the FSA to fight ISIL.
In the first instance this seemed to be an attempt to highlight to CJTFOIR the massive flaw in their support for the FSA by asking them if they could identify any FSA units that are currently fighting ISIL rather then being allied with them. After all Russia has always indicated that it is prepared to work with any anti-ISIL force - there just seems to be a bit of a shortage of them.
Beyond that though it seemed to be Russia indicating that it is prepared to work with the SDF whom CJTFOIR continues to refuse to support at Erdogan's insistence.
With Russian air-support the Syrian government continues to make steady progress against the Al Qaeda led Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition. On an almost daily basis small villages in Latakia, Idlib, Homs and Hama provinces are being liberated from JAF. There is also a lot of speculation that the Syrian government is on the verge of launching either an operation to liberate the ancient city of Palmyra from ISIL or the city of Aleppo from ISIL and JAF.
This creates an almost air of inevitability that over the coming months the Syrian government will have rolled both ISIL and JAF back the the starting positions when the CJTFOIR began it's operations 14 months ago.
If CJTFOIR is still not in a position to push ISIL out of Iraq back into northern Syria by then there will be a lot of pressure on Russia to force ISIL out of Syria entirely and chase them into Syria. This would make Russia the hero and effectively end US influence in the oil rich region.
So the US really needs to step up it's efforts in Iraq or risk losing the race entirely. Due to the pressures of time I'll deal with that sseparately tomorrow.
18:15 on 28/10/15 (UK date).
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