Due to the COP21 climate change summit it has been three weeks since my last dedicated update on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups in Iraq and Syria. At that time the big concern was over Turkish plans to invade Syria.
These concerns date back to the summer of 2015 and centre on the town of Marea. This sits in Aleppo Province some 30km (18 miles) north of Aleppo City. It also sits 20km (12 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey. Up until early August it was controlled by the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) Islamist group.
Then on August 9th (9/8/15) the Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the two largest factions in JAF - the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML) and the Al Qaeda affiliate the Al Nusra Front (ANF) - to abandon Marea. This allowed ISIL to seize control of the town.
Henceforth the town became known as "Erdogan's Pocket."
Turkey's hope was that the prospect of ISIL advancing so close to the Turkish border would provide an excuse for Turkey to invade a large section of northern Syria stretching from the town of Jarablus on the banks of the Euphrates River to the Latakia Mountains which sit on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
Rather than fighting ISIL the purpose of this Turkish invasion would be to clear the anti-ISIL Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) from Aleppo and Idlib Provinces. It would then re-establish ISIL's supply lines through Turkey by by-passing the roughly 800km^2 (480 miles^2) buffer-zone that the QSD has established between ISIL and Turkey across the north-east of Syria.
On September 30th (30/9/15) Russia entered the fight in Syria against ISIL and associated groups. This substantially disrupted Turkey's invasion plans.
In the first instance Russia's involvement has dramatically shifted the momentum of the conflict against ISIL and the JAF.
On December 8th (8/12/15) ISIL and JAF fighters in the city of Homs - 150km (90 miles) north of the Syrian capital Damascus and 180km (110 miles) south of Aleppo City - finally surrendered to Syrian government forces. As part of their surrender they were allowed to leave along with their families to Aleppo Province.
The more moderate groups were allowed to remain in the city on condition that they stop attacking civilians and Syrian government forces. They appear to have violated that agreement yesterday (28/12/15) with twin car bombings in the city which killed 32.
Also yesterday ISIL and JAF chose to surrender the towns of Foua and Kafraya and the city Zabadani which all sit between Damascus and the border with Lebanon. You may remember that this was originally scheduled to take place in late-September. Unfortunately ISIL and JAF took some ill-advised American comments on the imminent collapse of the Syrian government a little too literally and continued to fight on. This hastened Russia's involvement.
As with in Homs City ISIL and JAF fighters in Foua and Kafraya and Zabadani have been allowed to take their families and leave for Aleppo Province. More moderate groups have been allowed to remain on condition that they stop attacking civilians and Syrian government forces.
On December 26th (26/12/15) ISIL and JAF were supposed to surrender control of the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in the suburbs of Damascus under a similar agreement to Homs City, Foua and Kafraya and Zabadani.
However on December 25th (25/12/15) a targeted Russian air-strike killed Zahran Alloush - the leader of the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI) which is a small but particularly nasty faction within the JAF coalition which is very active around Damascus.
It was JAI who on July 1st (1/7/15) released a 20 minute ISIL-style propaganda video in which 18 ISIL fighters were beheaded. JAI's reason for doing this was that it considered ISIL far too moderate and not brutal enough in its attempts to ethnically cleanse the Levant region.
Surrendering Yarmouk so soon after the death of Alloush would seem too much like complete defeat for JAI so they have decided to fight on. Obviously this continuation of fighting prevents the evacuation of wounded civilians from Yarmouk and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the camp.
This run of defeats means that ISIL's occupation of Marea is now much less of a concern. It seems likely that Syrian government will soon be able to fully liberate Aleppo City and then move up to liberate Marea.
Failing that Russia has been looking at working with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who based in what is termed the Afrin Canton north-west of Aleppo City to move east to liberate Marea and link up with the QSD coalition east of the Euphrates.
Turkey's shooting down of a Russian Su-24 over the Latakia Mountains on November 24th (24/11/15) was intended to reverse ISIL and JAF's run of defeats by getting the international community to prevent further Russian air-strikes. Fortunately this attempt failed.
Russia's involvement also of course presents the much more immediate problem to Turkey that if it were to launch an invasion of Syria Russian aircraft would simply destroy the invasion force.
So with Turkey's window for action closing they set a provisional date of December 16th (16/12/15) for this invasion to take place.
In preparation Turkey decided to test the diplomatic waters by sending a 1,200 strong force into northern Iraq without the permission of the Iraqi government on December 4th (4/12/15). They then set up camp near the town of Bashika
Fortunately this aggressive Turkish move prompted something of a furious diplomatic backlash. Numerous nations voiced their opposition through various hoax security threats to passenger aircraft. The issue was even raised at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) although the US blocked a resolution formally condemning Turkey's actions.
However this didn't stop Russia from flying strategic bombers low and aggressively over the Bashika camp to send the message that they could bomb the Turkish troops out of Iraq if they wished to. This was followed by the US 'accidentally' bombing a Syrian government camp in north-east Syria. That could well have been interpreted as the US sending Russia the message that if it wanted to solve the Bashika problem the US wouldn't complain too loudly.
It seems that by December 13th (13/12/15) Turkey finally got the message that it's planned invasion of Syria would not be tolerated and withdrew the bulk - roughly 1000 - of it's troops from Iraq.
It was a full six days after this on December 19th (19/12/15) that US President Barack Obama finally felt confident enough to criticise Turkey's actions and call for the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Iraq.
No-one seemed more upset at the cancellation of the Turkish invasion then ISIL themselves. On the provisional invasion date (16/12/15) ISIL launched a sustained rocket attack on the Bashika camp injuring at least 4 Turkish troops. Turkey's excuse for sending so many troops to Bashika was to provide force protection for Turkish trainers already at the base. A significant attack on the base would seem to strengthen that claim.
With the threat of Turkish invasion lifted the QSD have been able to cross the Euphrates and push west towards ISIL positions around Jarablus.
Following an operation that began on December 23rd (23/12/15) by December 26th (26/12/15) the QSD had succeeded in clearing a roughly 200km^2 (120 mile^2) area made up of some 20 farms, 8 villages and numerous bridges between the town of Sarrin and the Tishan dam including the dam itself.
The Tishan Dam sits around 30km (18 miles) south-west of the town of Manbij and around 90km (55 miles) north-west of Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria. With the exception of the bridge at the town of Al Tabqah which sits some 55km (30 miles) to the south it represents that last main river crossing linking Raqqa with ISIL positions across the north-west of Syria including Jarablus and Marea.
As a result it is a huge strategic victory for the QSD which will certainly hasten ISIL's defeat by cutting their remaining supply lines with Turkey.
Erdogan's response to this latest defeat for ISIL has been typically furious.
For example on December 25th (25/12/15) in a buttock-clenchingly awful attempt to portray himself as the heroic saviour of all mankind Erdogan was keen to send the message that he is more then prepared to send his security forces to stop people taking that fatal next step over the river.
However as I'm still finding my feet after the festive break I will be back to add more detail on that tomorrow.
18:05 on 29/12/15 (UK date).
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