Operation Featherweight: Month 21, Week 1, Day 3.

You remember how the Syrian government and Russia definitely aren't fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups.

Well on Sunday (27/3/16) that not fighting saw the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) with Russian air-support liberate the city of Palmyra from ISIL. Famed for its ancient city Palmyra is of course located in the centre of Syria some 150km (90 miles) east of Homs City and around 185km (110 miles) south of Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria.

By all accounts the battle to liberate Palmyra was particularly bruising one with ISIL reported to have seen more than 400 of their fighters killed. The SAA lost about a quarter of that number while 6 Russian Special Forces operators were also killed.

In a particularly courageous incident one of those Special Forces operators was acting as a covert Forward Air Controller directing air-strikes from behind ISIL's lines. When he was discovered and surrounded by ISIL fighters he simply called in an air-strike on his own position knowing that it meant certain death for him.

Despite ISIL's concerted efforts to cling onto Palmyra by Friday (25/3/16) the SAA had managed to enter the hotel district to the north of the city and were advancing from the east in the direction off the air port. The turning point came on Saturday (26/3/16) when the SAA were able to liberate Palmyra's historic citadel/castle - Qalaat Fakhr ad-Din al-Maani - which sits on the south-western edge of the city.

This caused ISIL's leadership to give the order for the city to be surrendered and for its fighters to retreat - presumably towards As-Sukhnah and Raqqa. As has become their standard practice ISIL have left behind a city littered with landmines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) that can take many weeks to clear fully. To speed up this process Russia has today announced that it is dispatching bomb disposal experts with specialised equipment.

In terms of its impact on the wider conflict ISIL's loss of Palmyra is possibly one of the most significant defeats they've suffered - far worse than the loss of the Battle of Kobane and up there with the uncompleted liberations of Tikrit and Ramadi in Iraq. Obviously in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of Tikrit or Ramadi the SAA will first have to fully secure Palmyra and then drive ISIL from As-Sukhnah which sits around 55km (35 miles) to the north-east.

However people are already openly talking about the liberation of Palmyra and the main M20 Highway that runs through it as the first step towards breaking ISIL's siege of Deir-ez-Zour which sits around 200km (120 miles) beyond As-Sukhnah to the north-east in the Euphrates River basin.

Although ISIL control much of the territory around Deir-ez-Zour the SAA have been able to maintain a small garrison in the city itself to protect the local population. Since January ISIL have been waging a intense offensive to capture the city. Despite all the headlines about the cease-fire improving humanitarian access this siege has put Deir-ez-Zour's civilian population in a very grave situation with the Russian's being forced to air-drop humanitarian supplies into the city.

If the SAA can lift the siege of Deir-ez-Zour it will put them in a position to cross the Euphrates River. From there they can advance up to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) positions near the recently liberated town of Ash Shaddadi which sits around 105km (60 miles) north-east of Deir-ez-Zour and roughly 55km (35 miles) south of Hasakah City. This will succeed not only in cutting Raqqa off from the main Deir-ez-Zour oilfields but also ISIL occupied areas in neighbouring Iraqi.

The coverage given to the liberation of Palmyra in the western media has been somewhat amusing. On the one hand in order to justify their support for ISIL and associated groups they've spent five years telling us how evil the Syrian government is. However it has become impossible for them to disguise just how appalling ISIL and their associates are. As such they're really struggling to decide whether ISIL losing territory to the SAA is a good thing or a bad thing.

A particularly amusing example came on Wednesday (23/3/16) when US State Department Spokesman Mark Toner was asked during a press conference whether the US would prefer to see Palmyra remain under ISIL occupation. After trying to evade the question by condemning what he referred to as the "Syrian regime" for violating the cease-fire he was eventually forced to concede that ISIL are the greater threat.

Another strange comment came from a BBC reporter who claimed that the Palmyra operation had only been conducted as a cynical attempt to give the Syrian - again - 'regime' a propaganda victory following last Tuesday's (22/3/16) terror attacks in Brussels, Belgium. The problem with that of course is that the operation to liberate Palmyra began several weeks ago and the planning took place long before that. Therefore the Syrian government would have had to knowledge of the Brussels attacks almost two months in advance in order to exploit it by liberating Palmyra days later.

No doubt if pressed this reporter would have been unfazed by this contradiction. Instead she would have argued that obviously the Syrian government had extensive prior knowledge of an ISIL attack because ISIL and the Syrian government are the same organisation. Of course she might have struggled a bit to explain why these two supposedly different branches of the same organisation have been battling each other so intensely for at least the last three months.

That of course is the sort of conspiraloon logic that has been driving the entire Syria conflict these past five years.

Over in Iraq the US-led attempts to defeat ISIL are not going well. On Thursday (24/3/16) it was announced that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the Kurdish Peshmerga backed by the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - had begun operations to liberate the city of Mosul - ISIL's de facto capital in Iraq.

The immediate objective of this operation was to clear ISIL from a number of small, barely mapped villages centred around Nasser that sit between Mosul and the town on Makhmur around 75km (45 miles) to the south-east. By Saturday (26/3/16) this operation had begun to metaphorically bog-down with little progress being made. With bad weather on Sunday (27/3/16) and today the operation has now begun to literally bog-down.

The lack of success in the US-led operation seems to stem from the fact that it was driven by political concerns rather than any concrete military objective.

In the first instance the operation was begun while US Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Russia. This was of course two days after the Brussels attacks and just as the Russian supported operation to liberate Palmyra was picking up irresistible momentum. As such the US seems to have launched this Mosul operation almost on a political whim to make it look like they too were trying to defeat ISIL rather than leaving it all up to Russia and the Syrian government.

Another significant factor behind the US' rush to action has clearly been the death of a US Marine last Friday (18/3/16). That Marine was of course killed by ISIL rocket fire on a US firebase on the Makhmur frontline. As such I think we can all understand the US' desire for a limited operation to force ISIL out of range of those bases on the Makhmur frontline. However the US leadership doesn't seem interested in driving ISIL back to create a safe training area.

On Friday (25/3/16) the US military floated the idea that it will soon be sending US President Barack Obama a plan to expand the deployment of US ground troops to Iraq. If this idea is formally presented and if it is it seems likely that Obama will give his approval it will lead to the setting up of more firebases like the one at Makhmur.

In turn that will lead to more ISIL attacks on those bases and more small operations to force ISIL back. This risks the US being incrementally dragged into more small operations of ISIL's choosing denying itself the option of launching large, planned operations at the time of their choosing.

Friday (25/3/16) also provided us with a stark demonstration of the failings of the US-led operation in Iraq when an ISIL suicide bomber blew himself up in a football stadium that was hosting a tournament for school children. The attack which took place in Iskandariya 50km (30 miles) south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad killed at least 25 and wounded 90 more.

As I've said on numerous occasions both Syria and Iraq are active warzones. This means that people are getting shot and blown up not just on a daily basis but on an almost hourly basis. As such I simply can't comment on every single one of these incidents.

However the Iskandariya attack seems particularly significant because it targeted a football stadium. Coming three days after the ISIL attacks in Brussels, Belgium this was intended not just as an attack on the Iraqi people but also the people of Europe - particularly France which will be hosting the Euro2016 football tournament in June.

The location of Iskandariya is significant. It is a predominately Shia-Muslim area and has been targeted before to prevent the Shia militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) being used in the operation to liberate Sunni-Muslim dominated Anbar province by increasing sectarian divisions. However even if the US still refuses to accept it Iraq is a Shia dominated country so an attack anywhere except Anbar by the nominally Sunni ISIL is going have this sectarian dimension to it.

What is more significant about Iskandariya is that it is located to the south of Baghdad. Even in the midst of their lightning advances ISIL have only managed to get within 30km (20 miles) to the west of Baghdad and have certainly not been able to advance on or encircle the city. Therefore by attack Iskandariya ISIL trying to send the message that they are still capable to continue their advance threatening people in areas that had previously been unaffected by their presence.

Obviously the fact that ISIL have been reduced to the occasional suicide bombing rather than a traditional military advance and occupation does rather contradict that message. However now getting a bit desperate ISIL were probably hoping that little detail got overlooked amid all the blood and horror.

I don't have any particular information about where the Iskandariya attack was launched from and being the work of a sole suicide bomb it wouldn't require much in the way of logistical support. However the most likely areas are the partially ISIL occupied of city of Fallujah 40km (25 miles) to the west of Baghdad or the vast, largely unoccupied areas of desert that make up the bulk of Anbar province.

Despite the liberation of Ramadi back in December 2015 ISIL maintain either partial or complete control of these areas. The situation in Fallujah is particularly bad with the Iraqi government recently requesting that CJTFOIR make humanitarian aid drops to the trapped civilians.

As such it's clear that neither CJTFOIR nor the ISF have the option to go and start a Mosul operation until the situation in Anbar is fully resolved.

Yesterday (27/3/16) a suicide bombing tore through a public park in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's eastern Punjab province killing at least 70 and wounding 300 more. Although the primary target of the attack were members of Pakistan's small Christian minority who were celebrating Easter Sunday - the most important day in the Christian calender - the majority of those killed or wounded were Muslims.

You may remember that on Sunday March 13th (13/3/16) there was a similar suicide attack on a transport hub close to a public park in the Turkish capital Ankara which killed 32 and wounded more than 100. Turkish authorities blamed this attack on a mythical Kurdish separatist group known as the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK). Their hope being that it would be viewed as a Russian backed retaliation for a terror attack Turkey had carried out in Nazran in the Russian Caucus region of Ingushetia two days previously.

The March 13th Ankara bombing prompted an immediate outpouring of support from Turkey from Internet users across the globe but particularly from Pakistan. Obviously I can't account for every comment made by every Pakistani however a large portion of this did not express grief or sympathy for those killed or opposition to terrorism.

Instead it seemed more focused on Pakistan as a Muslim nation uniting with Turkey as a Muslim nation in the war against non-Muslims. The particular definition of "Non-Muslim" used here seems to include all Shia Muslims and the entire Kurdish ethnic group.

Three days later on March 16th (16/3/16) a bomb tore through a bus in Peshawar, north-western Pakistan killing 15 and wounding 30. Given the similarities with the March 13th Ankara bombing that primarily targeted a bus garage this seemed to be Pakistan casting doubt on Turkey's claim that the Ankara bombing had been carried out by TAK or in fact any Kurdish group.

This groundswell of the type of Islamic solidarity on display following the March 13th Ankara bombing has been causing the Pakistani government a lot of problems of late.

For example Pakistan's Parliament building in recent weeks has been almost under siege by protesters angry at the recent execution of Mumtaz Qadri. That execution was carried out because Qadri had murdered Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab province - whom he was supposed to be guarding - because Taseer has criticised Pakistan's extremely harsh anti-blasphemy (against Islam) laws.

This type of Islamic solidarity has also seen nuclear armed Pakistan forced to join up with Pegasus - a military coalition of Muslim nations led by Saudi Arabia. The Saudis claim that Pegasus' purpose is to fight terrorism in the region. However Saudi Arabia defines "terrorism" as "Shia Muslim" meaning that groups such as ISIL and Al Qaeda are not considered terrorist while the governments of Iraq and Syria are.

On Sunday (27/3/16) the first formal meeting of the military heads of Pegasus - my codename - took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. As such the Lahore attack seems intended to test Pakistan's loyalty to the military bloc that also contains Turkey. The attack was carried out but a faction of the Pakistan Taliban known as the Assembly of the Free/Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.

Obviously their name is very similar to the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant(FML)/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham). Despite being allied to both ISIL and Al Qaeda Ahrar al-Sham are included in the Geneva talks on Syria as part of the 'moderate' opposition.

In terms of how the world responds to recent events including the Brussels attacks we are somewhat hampered by the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) that will take place in Washington D.C, US on March 31st (31/3/16) and April 1st (1/4/16). The NSS is something Obama dreamt up at the start of his Presidency back when he thought he was going to heal the world with the first NSS taking place in April 2010.

Obama clearly doesn't see the Brussels attacks or the wider fight against ISIL to be important enough to cancel his big vanity project in favour of say a NATO Summit. I gather though that at the insistence of all other participants ISIL has been forced onto the NSS agenda. However in light of Obama's reticence Belgium in particular seem to be cracking under the pressure.

18:00 (17:00 GMT) on 28/3/16 (UK date).

Edited at around 18:40 GMT (19:40 BST) on 28/3/16 (UK date) to add; I was in a bit of a rush and spellchecker wasn't working. So I've just tided up the above slightly.

Operation Featherweight: Month 20, Week 5, Day 2.

On Tuesday (22/3/16) the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) carried out triple terror attacks in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. These attacks killed 31 people and wounded 230 more.

Yesterday (24/3/16) Interior Ministers of European Union (EU) member states met in Brussels at the EU HQ just metres from the Maelbeek underground rail (Metro) station that had been the target of one of the attacks. With this being the third mass casualty terror attack ISIL have launched against the EU in seven months from Molenbeek neighbourhood of Brussels it is unlikely that Belgium would have been at all popular at that meeting.

In fact I get the impression that the Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon offered his resignation yesterday morning in an attempt to avoid having to attend the meeting. It didn't work.

It seems though that the meeting did though finally spur the Belgians into some form of action. Last night and this morning they have carried out several police raids that have arrested seven suspects. There have also been raids in France and Germany capturing a further three suspects. However at this point it is not clear how closely linked the French and German arrests are to the Molenbeek network.

Although these raids are certainly better than the previous seven months of nothing I remain worried that the Belgians have still not gone far enough.

We are currently in the midst of the US Presidential campaign and the EU is still in the grips of the refugee crisis the wars against Syria and Iraq have created. As such I'm hesitant to talk about Belgium's problems because I know anything I say will be wilfully mis-interpreted and leapt on for political gain. 

For example Poland immediately responded to the Brussels attacks by announcing it will be closing its doors to refugees. This is despite all the attackers being identified as Belgian citizens.

Therefore I should start by pointing out that many, many EU nations have large immigrant populations without any problem. For example in the UK you've got a large Pakistani Muslim community in Bradford and a large Indian Hindu population in Southall. There's also a large Australian population in west London although for them it's more like returning home after finally being released from prison. 

To an outsider these areas can seem a little strange and places you wouldn't normally go. However that is due to a casual lack of shared interests rather than any hostility to outsiders. They're certainly not "No-go Zones." If those areas do start to challenge shared British values then we have strong institutions such as local government, the police and courts to keep them in check. 

That is actually why I find this current government's obsession with devolution slightly worrying although I think that's a topic for another day.

Along with possibly Gothernburg in Sweden Brussels and in particular the Molenbeek neighbour has a very serious problem. As an example Saleh Abdeslam - the ringleader of the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres - was able to shelter there for many months despite being the most wanted man in Europe. Then when Abdeslam was finally arrested last Friday (18/3/16) local residents attacked the police with rocks and petrol bombs in an effort to protect him.

Following Tuesday's (22/3/16) attacks Belgian's were asked to pray for the victims as part of three days of national mourning. Many Mosques refused saying that they would only pray for the Muslim's killed. As far as we knew at the time the only Muslims killed were the attackers. At the impromptu memorial that has sprung up at the Place de la Bourse Belgian Muslims have come along to tear up and otherwise deface the Israeli flag while the flag of mockery continues to be allowed to fly in pride of place at the memorial's centre.

At the risk of getting by urban geography hat on I would say that the main problem has been the lack of an integrated housing policy. Regardless of religion or race this always leads to ghettoisation which destroys community cohesion. It's actually a particular problem in the US although it rarely applies to America's relatively small Muslim population. 

The problems this is known to create raises serious questions about the UK government's attempts to scrap housing integrating through things like the Housing Benefit cap. However again I think that's a topic for another day.

Belgium's more urgent problem though is that over the past five years it's government have been enthusiastic supporters of the wars against Syria and elsewhere. 

As such they, along with much of the western media, having been deliberately pumping the heads of their young Muslim populations full of lies about particularly the war on Syria. This has been done in an effort to radicalise those young Muslims so they would go off an fight for groups such as ISIL in order to violently crush the democratic revolutions Tunisia and Egypt threatened to spread across the region.

The biggest mistake Belgium made though was thinking that because it had recruited them it somehow owed these young terrorists a debt. So rather than just accepting that pledging allegiance to ISIL meant you have given up any other citizenship you may have held in order to take your chances against the Kurdish guns Belgium has been welcoming these terrorists back. They don't even seem to be monitoring their movements let alone jailing them.

As a result of these factors ISIL do seem to enjoy deep support within certain areas of Belgian society. 

This may not produce a large number of people who are prepared to carry out terrorist attacks themselves but it can produce a large number of people who are prepared to provide logistical support for people who are. This includes hiding suspects and using property for the production and storage of weaponry. As such I'm not convinced that simply rounding up half a dozen suspects will succeed. After all replacements can be provided from Syria to the support network.

In terms of what exactly I think needs to be done I am annoyingly prevented from just publishing that on the Internet. Having with the Belgian military having deployed to Afghanistan as part of the NATO mission they should already know. After all they've done it thousands of times before.

This of course raises an interesting question about civil liberties. After all the US' first reaction to the Brussels attacks seemed to be unconfined glee that they now had something that could be used to force the EU to adopt the controversial Airline Passenger Name Records (PNR) spy database. The UK responded by announcing that it was expanding British spy agencies staff by around 1,900 to take advantage of the new "Snoopers Charter" surveillance powers.

Therefore the question is; Do we permanently take some civil liberties off everybody or temporarily take all civil liberties of a small group of people who represent a significant threat. And then apologise for treating them as human garbage these past five years.

Again though I should point out that I'm talking about things like the temporary and limited lifting of protections against search and seizure in line with a state of emergency. I'm certainly not talking about the sort enhanced interrogation techniques that seem almost indistinguishable from torture.

Belgium in particular has extensive civil liberty protections that would seem odd to most democratic countries on an everyday basis. Let alone during a state of emergency. For example Belgian authorities are not allowed to search private homes between the hours of 21:00 and 05:00. I think you can see that there's a lot of difference between suspending that restriction and starting to waterboard suspects.

Then of course there is the case of Saleh Abdeslam himself. During his arrest on Friday (18/3/16) Abdeslam received a non-life threatening gunshot wound to his leg. As they didn't want to cause him any discomfort or distress this meant that police were only able to interview him for a single hour in the four days between his arrest and Tuesday's (22/3/16) bombings. In my experience using pre-existing injuries to induce a fragile psychological state is page one of the police interrogation handbook. The spies of course are able to take things much further.

Abdeslam actually seems to be quite interested in this civil liberties debate. Almost immediately after his arrest he announced his intention to refuse extradition to France. Based on the assumption that this wouldn't in any way impact on the way he was interrogated I didn't consider this a major issue. It did though raise a few eyebrows that he would be afforded this luxury during a state of emergency. Following Tuesday's (22/3/16) attacks Abdeslam has indicated that he will accept extradition. This seems calculated to avoid a backlash against Belgium's civil liberties in order to protect his wider network.

The other priority in response to the Brussels attacks is of course the need to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter. This would make the attacks on Belgium an attack on all NATO members and make the defeat of ISIL non-optional for all NATO members. Sadly the US still seems to be resisting this move. Today US Secretary of State visited Brussels for a sum total of five hours. When he said; "We will not be intimidated. We will not be deterred" you were left wondering whether he was addressing ISIL or the people putting pressure on the US to defeat ISIL.

For his part US President Barack Obama has still not seen the Brussels attacks as reason for breaking off from his holiday. Speaking in Argentina he attempted to justify this position by claiming that it was better not to give ISIL the satisfaction of having him react. I am very familiar with this argument. In fact it is the advice I gave to Obama during the spate of ISIL hostage/beheading videos in late 2014/early 2015.

What was happening there is that ISIL would release a video showing a hostage that they were threatening to kill if certain demands were not met. They would then release a video showing the hostage being killed. Under those circumstances it was very important for world leaders such as Obama not to react. This was to send the message to ISIL of; "Kill your hostages or don't kill you hostages. It makes no difference to us." In sending that message you were removing ISIL's incentive to kill hostages.

I almost can't believe that I am having to explain that the Paris Massacres and the Brussels attacks are entirely different from a hostage negotiation. Rather than trying to engage us in a negotiation these attacks were carried out to simply send the message that ISIL can come into our house and attack us. By not reacting Obama is sending the message that he's not even going to try and stop them. This will only encourage ISIL to do it more because they're allowed to get away with.

In offering this false justification Obama actually cited the April 15th 2013 (15/4/13) Boston Marathon bombings as an example. It is widely accepted that this was carried out by the US as a threat to Russia that if it continued to oppose ISIL then the US would assist with terror attacks against the 2014 Winter Olympics. It was also done to pique interest in Rihanna's 2013 Diamonds World Tour.

Rihanna is currently on her first tour since the Diamonds Tour. Fortunately everyone in political circles has been able to ignore it up until now. However with Obama reminding everyone of Rihanna in the context of the Brussels attacks that may become more difficult. So by attempting to increase everyone's workload while reminding everyone of the US' longterm support for ISIL Obama's response actually seems quite aggressive towards the victims.

Unfortunately the US seems to be unable to stick to Obama's "Dinadu Nuffin' Doctrine." Today they are claiming they killed Abdul Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli - ISIL Finance Minister and second-in-command - in air-strike this week. This seems to stem from the cynical belief that if the US can grab the headlines by killing a high-profile terrorist no-one will notice that they're not really doing anything to defeat ISIL.

As the months drag on into years this approach is becoming a more serious problem. In the absence of a more concrete plan to defeat them ISIL are now starting to fragment in such a way that could make them impossible to defeat. As such rather than speeding up that process it would probably be better for the US to do nothing in response to the Brussels attacks and just learn to accept the criticism that brings. 

After all if they believe in what they're doing is right a few insults shouldn't matter.

On the topic of US politics ISIL yesterday released another propaganda video. Although I've not seen it I gather then 9 minute recording was simply gloating over the Brussels attacks with footage cropped from the news coverage. At the end it featured an audio recording of presumptive US Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump describing Brussels as a horror show.

This stems from a Democrat Presidential debate on December 19th 2015 (19/12/15) in which Hillary Clinton claimed that ISIL were using Trump as a recruitment tool in their videos. As ISIL weren't using Trump in their recruitment videos this left Hillary extremely foolish and seeming to living in the same alternate reality as Barack Obama.

So on January 4th (4/1/16) Al-Shabaab - the Islamist terror group based in Somalia - specially produced a propaganda video featuring Donald Trump in order to take the pressure off Hillary Clinton. This latest ISIL video seems to be a continuation of that theme.

So yeah, ISIL are now actively campaigning for Hillary Clinton.

17:25 on 25/3/16 (UK date).

Operation Featherweight: Month 20, Week 5, Day 1.

Ever since they rose to prominence in the summer of 2013 we've been assured that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were allied with the Syrian government against the so-called 'moderate opposition.'

When ISIL were defeated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) at the Battle of Kobane in January 2015 we were assured that the YPG were allied both with ISIL and the Syrian government. Apparently that four month battle between the two was just a ruse to hide the alliance between ISIL and the YPG.

When Russia deployed air forces to Syria at the end of September 2015 we were assured that they too were part of the elaborate conspiracy of ISIL, the YPG and the Syrian government against the so-called 'moderate opposition.'

Nothing of course could be further from the truth. The clearest example of this was the Northwestern offensive that ran between April and June 2015.

Here the so-called 'moderate opposition' who are better known as the Al Qaeda led Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) launched a three pronged assault on Idlib City - the capital of Idlib province. Capturing the city in three days they went on to lay siege to the towns of Kafarya and al-Fu'a. That siege remains in place with the JAF blocking the delivery of humanitarian supplies. By mid-June JAF had captured the town of Jisr al-Shugur and the Ahria-Latakia Highway putting them in almost complete control of Idlib and Hama provinces.

The fourth prong of this offensive was conducted by ISIL. In May of 2015 they launched an assault from the town of Al-Sukhnah which sits around 130km (80 miles) south of ISIL's de facto capital in Syria Raqqa. By the end of May ISIL had advanced around 65km (40 miles) south-west seizing the historic city of Palmyra. They then proceeded to destroy many of the ancient artifacts in this UNESCO World Heritage site in yet another example of ethnic cleansing.

With Russian support the Syrian government launched a northwestern offensive of their own in October 2015. By the end of February 2016 this had succeeded in rolling back almost all the JAF gains of the previous year. The Syrian government regained control of the Ahria-Latakia Highway and liberated Jisr al-Shugur along with all of Latakia province and most of Idlib, Homs and Hama provinces leaving JAF contained around Aleppo City.

As a result on March 15th (15/3/16) Russia announced it was withdrawing the bulk of its forces from Syria.

Once you got past the initial surprise of the announcement it was obvious that Russia was not planning to withdraw all its forces from Syria. In fact they made quite clear that they would be maintaining the usual deployment of forces at the Khmeimim air base and the Tartus naval base along with a compliment of Special Forces troops.

Since mid-March those remaining Russian forces have been concentrating supporting the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in the liberation of Palmyra from ISIL. Just last Friday (18/3/16) five Russian Special Forces were killed in fierce fighting with ISIL in Qasr al-Halabat - a town just west of Palmyra.

Today comes the news that the SAA with Russian support have entered the city of Palmyra from the north and have liberated part of the hotel district forcing ISIL back into the city centre. The SAA are also advancing in the east from the direction of the airport. As such it seems that Palmyra is on the brink of liberation.

This news came as US Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting his Russian counterpart in Russia. In what I hope was judgement clouded by envy the US has today also decided to launch the operation to liberate Mosul - ISIL's de facto capital in Iraq.

Sadly we already know how this operation is going to go. We've already seen it in last spring's Tikrit operation and last winter's Ramadi operation. 

ISIL will flee from their positions and mix in with the local population in the surrounding country side. For there they will continue launching attacks long after the city itself has been declared liberated. This is why civilians continue to be attacked with chemical weapons in the town of Taza almost a year after the liberation of Tikrit and why ISIL continues to kill Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) troops near Ramadi several months after the city was declared liberated.

This shift from conventional-style warfare to asymmetric, guerrilla-style warfare will make it almost completely impossible eradicate ISIL. The result will be a permanently destabilised Iraq with all the security implications for the wider world that brings. As such I would have thought that much of the anti-ISIL strategy would be focused on denying ISIL that opportunity.

This is something I've be worried about ever since US President Barack Obama announced that he intended to; "Degrade and ultimately Destroy ISIL." After all the first part of that plan renders the second part impossible. However it is only now that we've been given not one but two examples of ISIL working that out for themselves that I've felt free to talk about it openly.

Therefore it is clear that this Mosul operation must cease immediately. The forces involved then need to be re-deployed to complete the Anbar operation - Fallujah being a particular concern - before they complete the Tikrit operation. After all the Kirkuk triangle seems to be a natural precursor to the Mosul operation.

While I appreciate that Obama sees ISIL as a vital ally rather than an enemy at worst he is only going to remain as President until January 2017. It would be nice if he was prevented from burning every opportunity to the ground before his successor takes over.

Although it probably goes against my better judgement the tone of the media coverage does rather force me to take a moment to comment on this Turkish claim that it warned Belgium about - Ibrahim El Bakraoui - one of the perpetrators of Tuesday's (22/3/16) terror attacks in Brussels.

You may remember that following the Paris Massacres it took me several months to confirm why the explosive TATP was being referred to as; "The Flower/Flour of Turkey." Well let's just say that when it comes to the Brussels attacks the coincidences are starting to pile up. 

The Turkish announcement was intended to head off an potential accusations. However if you look carefully Turkey stopped Ibrahim El Bakraoui as he was returning to Turkey from ISIL held territory in Syria at an undisclosed point in mid-June. This of course was in the midst of the fallout the June 7th (7/6/15) Turkish General Election in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice & Development Party (AKP) was shocked to not be able to secure an outright majority.

It was only at the end of June that Turkey deported Ibrahim El Bakraoui - a Belgian national - to the Netherlands rather than Belgium. The only explanation I can think of for this is that Turkey was making it is difficult as possible for Belgian authorities to realise that he had returned to Belgium. The actual Turkish notification was not sent to either the Netherlands or Belgium until mid-July - at least two weeks after Ibrahim El Bakraoui had arrived back in Europe.

So no, Turkey has not provided Belgium or any other European Union (EU) state with what can be termed actionable intelligence in this case.

It must also be said though that it is extremely difficult to discuss the increased terror threat that Belgium is currently experiencing without mentioning the enthusiasm with which its government embraced Glasgow bin Lorry and the Garbage Truck Express.

18:55 on 24/3/16 (UK date).

 

Operation Featherweight: Month 20, Week 4, Day 7.

This should be read as a direct continuation of; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/operation-featherweight-month-20-week-4_22.html

On Monday the UK responded to the Spanish bus crash with a similar bus crash in Ayrshire, Scotland. This was intended to acknowledge the point raised by the Spanish.

Throughout the Scottish independence referendum and now the European Union (EU) referendum Scottish nationalists have claimed that an independent Scotland will be able to join the EU. This is unlikely to be the case. Instead Spain is likely to block Scottish EU membership as not to increase calls for Catalan independence.

At around the same time a man was shot and wounded in a drive-by shooting in Craigavon, North Armagh, Northern Ireland. This area was the scene of many battles during the Troubles and is synonymous with the Holywood port from where Hollywood, Los Angeles, US gets its name.

The shooting occurred outside a school just as the children were leaving and getting on buses. That gave everyone plenty of opportunity to condemn just how stupid the whole thing was.

Just before Britain's contribution though residents of an area of Hamburg, Germany had be evacuated after Sulphuric acid and Nitric acid were accidentally mixed together in an industrial accident. Although I wouldn't recommend drinking it a mixture of Sulphuric and Nitric acids is generally harmless. However producing very dramatic looking clouds of yellow/orange gas it is a useful way to discuss chemical weapons.

It's a particularly useful way to discuss Mustard Gas because there is actually two types - Sulphur Mustard Gas and Nitrogen Mustard Gas. More worryingly Sulphuric acid can be used as one of the precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of VX nerve agent. This is probably the most lethal chemical weapons ever created. It is the stuff of nightmares for even battle hardened spies and terrorists.

For example if the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or an associated group were able to detonate a VX device at one of the stadiums or fan-parks during Euro 2016 there wouldn't be an evacuation plan. All the people in the immediate area would be dead.

Also with a similar consistency to motor oil it can take weeks to decontaminate an area following a VX attack. A major city would be crippled throughout this period.

Sulphuric acid is widely used in a variety of harmless industrial processes and is therefore extremely easy to get hold off.

As such you can imagine my relief when I discovered that the triple explosions that struck Brussels, Belgium yesterday killing 31 and wounding over 200 were just the result of conventional bombs.

What appears to have happened is that a bomb was detonated close to the American Airlines desk in the departure terminal of Brussels' Zaventem Airport. Then moments later the suicide bomber who had placed the suitcase bomb detonated his explosives belt close to a Starbucks coffee shop elsewhere in the terminal.

With both Starbucks and American Airlines being symbols of the US and Starbucks possibly being a reference to Sunday's Lafayette, Indiana bus crash it would be easy to interpret this as the US being the primary target of the attack. However despite symbols of America being involved the attack most certainly occurred in an airport in the Belgian capital.

Roughly an hour later a second suicide bomber struck Brussels underground rail (Metro) system. Specifically at the Maelbeek station. This is the main station serving the headquarters of the EU. It came 12 hours after a spirited but largely unsuccessful gun attack on a hotel housing the EU Military Training (EUMT) mission in Bamako, Mali.

As such the EU seems to be the main target of the Brussels attacks. The message simply being; "Do as you're told or we'll attack you again."

In terms of whether the attack was revenge for the capture of Saleh Abdeslam on Friday (18/3/16) normally I would say no.

Although I've not had it confirmed I suspect the explosive used was TATP. This is often used because it is relatively easy to manufacture. However in order to do that you first have to acquire large quantities of the precursor chemicals. As these are known to be used to make TATP if you were to walk into a shop and buy them all in bulk you would simply be arrested.

So instead you've got to buy or steal them separately in small quantities from a variety of shops. Once you've gone through the laborious process of obtaining the chemicals you've still got to turn them into functioning bombs and scout the targets you're going to use them against.

So normally I would say that three days is not enough time to prepare an attack.

However the problem that Belgium has got is that it has allowed ISIL to establish a base of operations within the country. This allowed them to launch the thankfully unsuccessful August 21st 2015 (21/8/15) Thalys train attack and the November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres.

The five months that base of operations has gone unmolested by the Belgian authorities is certainly enough time to build up an arsenal of weapons and plan attacks that are ready to be launched at short notice.

What I found interesting is that an unexploded suicide belt was left at Zaventem Airport. This seems to have been done as a joke at the expense of the Belgian security services.

It perfectly echoes the claim that Abdeslam was too afraid to carry out a suicide bombing as part of the Paris Massacres. This both mocks the people who believed this story and tries to get them to believe it again in order to prevent them hunting down the wider network.

Likewise investigators have conveniently being able to find a laptop belonging to Ibrahim el-Bakraoui who blew himself up at the airport. That laptop contained a word document in which Ibrahim spoke of the need for him to act quickly because the arrest of Abdeslam had him panicked. That is exactly the sort of misdirect you would leave in an effort to discourage investigators from looking for a wider support network.

In terms of how we respond to this latest attack I would like to keep the option of surprise at least partially open. However as with after the Paris Massacres it's clear that NATO needs to invoke the Article 5 mutual defence clause. This would mean that for NATO members fighting and defeating ISIL and their associates is no longer optional.

Unfortunately as with the Paris Massacres US President Obama doesn't seem in any way interested in this latest terror attacks on a US ally. He responded to the attacks by going to watch a exhibition baseball match in Cuba where he enjoyed hotdogs and a Mexcian wave. Rather than returning to Washington he has decided to continue his foreign holiday with a trip to Argentina.

Obama's excuse for doing this is that to change his plans would encourage the terrorists. This a nonsense because with the story being item one on every news channel across the globe Obama has already been forced to acknowledge the attacks.

By showing that he has no interest in taking action to respond to the attack Obama is simply giving succor and encouragement to the terrorists.

17:15 on 23/3/16 (UK date).

Operation Featherweight: Month 20, Week 4, Day 6.

As I find myself saying all too often there is one fundamental problem with the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups.

It is simply that US President Barack Obama does not view ISIL as either a threat or an enemy. Instead Obama views them as vital ally in assisting the US its objective in ridding the entire Middle-East region of Shia Muslims. Quite why ridding the Middle-East of Shia Muslim's is a US objective remains something of a mystery.

Therefore when in August 2014 overwhelming public pressure forced Obama to take action against ISIL his objective was never to defeat them. Instead it was to stall for time in order to build up some of ISIL's associates as the acceptable public face of genocide.

A key part of this stalling has been to send US ground troops to Iraq to train the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). It is only when this seemingly endless training is fully complete will Obama allow the ISF to contemplate fighting ISIL. To give you an idea of the problem basic training in the British Army last for 6 months. The US has been training the ISF for 20 months.

When the US Train & Equip for insurgent fighters in Syria was forced to be shut down in October 2015 amid widespread defections to Al Qaeda Obama simply ordered the training of the ISF to increase in order by more time. The strategy behind this increased deployment of US ground troops to Iraq is what are known as; "Lilly-pads." This involves establishing a network of small bases close to the front-lines which US troops can hop between rather like a frog on lilly-pads.

This is the strategy that the US deployed at the start of the Vietnam War. There is actually a rather good portrayal of it in the 1968 John Wayne movie "The Green Berets."

Obviously if your strategy is to place US ground troops within range of ISIL positions but not allow them to fight ISIL and force them from those positions it is only a matter of time before ISIL will be able to kill some of those US ground troops. We were all warned of this by the (19/2/16) crash of a Bell Ranger - as in Army Ranger - helicopter in Pearl Harbour of all places.

Last Friday (18/3/16) that prophecy came true. Here ISIL were able to launch a sustained rocket attack against one the lilly-pads near Mahkmour in Iraq's Kurdish north. During this attack several US Marines were wounded and one was killed. On Sunday ISIL were able to mount another attack against the same US base. This time it was a ground attack that managed to reach the perimeter wire of the base. Fortunately no US troops were killed or wounded.

The weekend's attacks forced the US to not only confirm that it has been secretly building up the number of ground troops in Iraq but also expanded their mission. Rather than being a training base the base which came under attack is fire base. Its purpose is to fire artillery against enemy positions within range.

The location of the base is particularly alarming because it is on the Mahkmour front-line which is just outside of Mosul - ISIL's de facto capital in Iraq. The reason why the base has been built is to provide force protection for ISF and Kurdish Peshmerga forces that have begun to assemble in the region ahead of a possible operation to liberate Mosul.

The problem is that the operation to liberate the city of Ramadi and "All of Anbar Province" is still far from over. Just yesterday ISIL were able to use a British suicide bomber to attack the ISF near the town of Ain al-Assad in western Anbar province. ISIL claim that 30 soldiers were killed in the attack while the ISF claim that the suicide bomber succeeded in killing only himself.

Then of course there is the unresolved issue of this triangle of territory between Tikrit, Baiji and Kirkuk. This is of course a job from the Tikrit operation that was left undone before the Anbar operation began.

As such it is hard to explain why Iraqi forces are amassing close to Mosul when so much of the rest of the country is still under ISIL control. Particularly as the Kirkuk triangle operation seems to be a natural precursor to any Mosul operation. It is even harder to explain why the US is encouraging this behaviour by middle a fire base on the Mahkmour front-line.

I understand that this needs to be an Iraqi led operation. However I can't help but wonder if the World's largest and most experienced military should perhaps be strongly suggesting plans at this point rather than seeming to lead the ISF on a wild goose chase.

Iraq's Shia militias who are known collectively as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) have responded to the public announcement of the increased US troop presence as an American attempt to re-occupy Iraq. That strikes me as a very theatrical way of saying that they're starting to get sick of the US' constant delaying tactics.

There was actually an extremely odd incident on the front-lines between ISIL and the Peshmerga close to Mosul last Tuesday (15/3/16). 

Here an ISIL fighter who has since been identified as Mohamad Jamal Khweis - a US/Iraqi/Palestinian dual national - just simply walked up to the Peshmerga positions. The Peshmerga obviously pointed their rifles at him and demanded to know if he was surrendering. This appears to have really confused Khweis who having got lost assumed that he was crossing Iraq's border into Turkey and the Peshmerga were Turkish borders who would welcome him with open arms just like they've done with thousands of ISIL fighters before.

After Khweis had been interrogated for a couple of days though the story suddenly changed. He was now giving press conferences about how he'd realised how he'd made a terrible mistake joining ISIL and had been trying to flee the group rather than heading for a few days rest and relaxation in Turkey. I like to think this change of narrative was the Peshmerga posing questions about another element of the US' curious ISIL strategy.

In recent weeks and months particularly in Syria there has been a significant increase in the number of ISIL fighters have been defecting to go and fight for groups that the US terms the "moderate opposition." The US have been hailing these defections as sign of the success of its strategy. However I'm of the opinion that no matter how many times an extremist switches between differently named groups he's still an extremist. This exchange of personnel also of course highlights just how similar in ideology ISIL and these supposedly moderate groups actually are.

Mind you with Obama's strategy simply to re-brand ISIL I can see why he would consider this sort of thing to be a success.

On the subject of Turkey as I mentioned on the day there was another suicide bombing in Istanbul on Saturday (19/3/16) that killed five. 

With three of the dead and many of the wounded being Israeli citizens the Israeli foreign intelligence service The Mossad very rapidly got involved in the investigation. Within a couple of hours they'd been able to identify the bomber as a Turkish national - Mehmet Ozturk. They then discreetly made this information public fuelling speculation that Ozturk had been an agent of the Turkish services.

This obviously made it impossible for Turkey to blame the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as they'd originally intended. So on Sunday (20/3/16) Turkey confirmed Ozturk as the bomber and claimed that he'd been working for ISIL. Fortunately in the increasingly elaborate conspiracy that is Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan's mind the PKK and ISIL are the same organisation working as part of a global plot to otherthrow him.

On Sunday afternoon Turkey cancelled the always fiery Istanbul football derby between Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe due to an unspecified security threat. I suspect that 'threat' was a concern that if the Turkey's Ultras united in opposition to the regime as they did in Egypt during the 2011 revolution it would only be a matter of hours before Erdogan was handing himself in at the International Criminal Court (ICC) seeking the safety of a cell.

Obviously the secondary objective is to get someone like me to point that out. This would fuel domestic speculation that a global conspiracy is plotting another coup so the Turkish population had better rally around to defend Erdogan. Sadly the fact that there is a complete absence of a global conspiracy to criticise let alone oust Erdogan is a major source of disappointment for me at the moment.

On Monday (21/3/16) Turkey gave the official explanation of why the football match had be cancelled. Apparently they were aware of three suicide bombers who were plotting an imminent attack. Their concern was that they would target this football match like the Stade d'France had been targeted during the Paris Massacres.

In light of Friday's (18/3/16) agreement with the EU this obviously sent the message that Turkey is just like the EU facing the same threats as the EU. Therefore the EU should join with Turkey in its war against the infidels. However with a still much stressed France preparing to host the Euro2016 football tournament in June I felt this carried with it an air of menace.

Literally as the EU-Turkey Summit was ending on Friday (18/3/16) Belgian and French police moved into arrest Saleh Abdeslam - the alleged mastermind of the Paris massacres.

To the surprise of absolutely no-one Abdeslam was arrested in the Molenbeek district of Brussels where he had been sheltered by local residents ever since the Paris massacres. What was particularly alarming about this situation is that as news spread that the raid was targeting Abdeslam local youths tried to stop it by attacking the police with bricks and petrol bombs. Police had to be re-deployed from the EU-Turkey Summit to help contain this mini-riot.

I know I'm in danger of over doing the references to the Northern Irish Troubles but this really was like scenes out of Belfast in the 1970/80's. As such I'm really struggling to see what option the Belgian authorities have other than using the state of emergency legislation that has been in place for five months now to treat Molenbeek and elsewhere as areas under enemy occupation. Provided they stop short of using artillery fire and air-strikes Turkey certainly wouldn't be able to claim any sort of moral high ground.

The reason why I haven't prioritised the arrest of Abdeslam above other more recent events is that unlike the March 2013 Boston Marathon bombers or even the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris is that we already know that he is part of a much larger organisation. The 20 months of air-strikes against ISIL should be a clue to that. So although his arrest is most certainly not a bad thing and over time should uncover significant valuable intelligence in the immediate term Abdeslam's capture makes little difference to the terrorist threat facing the EU.

Also I've been quite concerned about giving a running commentary on events Abdeslam and his associates certainly watch the news. As an example of this in the months since the Paris Massacres certain news outlets have taking great pride in claiming that Abdeslam was supposed to carry out a suicide bombing that night but was too scared to go through with it. This cowardice has led to him being shunned by ISIL preventing him from returning to Syria/Iraq.

Almost immediately after capture Abdeslam confirmed this exact story to investigators. That surely is what they wanted to hear because if Abdeslam was on the run from ISIL too and only being sheltered by a few close friends and family the investigators could rule out the fact he'd stayed in Belgium to co-ordinate more ISIL attacks. I gather though as questioning has continued Abdeslam's story has begun to change as investigators drill down to the truth.

The excitement of the EU-Turkey summit, the capture of Abdeslam, the death of the Marine and the Istanbul bombing - two of the victims were US/Israeli dual nationals seems to send the US into a bit of noisy frenzy over the weekend.

The first curious incident occurred on Saturday (19/3/16) when a bus carrying the Griffen High School basketball team to game in Lafayette overturned on the I-65 Highway in Indiana. Despite being aware of events that occurred later on any reference in this incident was so obscure that I almost dismissed it as just an accident.

However after staring at various reports for about an hour I concluded that the main points were the reference to the Marquis de Lafayette. This member of the French aristocracy was of course George Washington's right-hand man during the US War of Independence as such the various districts and public buildings named after him are testament to fact that France has been the US' military ally for slightly longer than the US has been a country.

Most of the injured in the crash were transported to a hospital in Illinois which of course is US President Obama's adoptive home state. Obama once famously compared ISIL to a Junior Varsity (JV) or High School basketball team.

Demonstrating that there are many places in the US named after the Marquis de Lafayette in the US and living in one can be a bit dangerous at the moment Saturday (19/3/16) also saw 22 people - mainly children - being taken to hospital after being exposed to Chlorine gas at a local swimming pool in Lafayette, Colorado.

This seemed intended to mock Obama's outrage at poorly founded accusations that the Syrian government has used Chlorine as a chemical weapon compared with his ambivalence to ISIL and associated groups routine of Sulphur Mustard Gas. After all while - particularly when children are involved - you would prefer for people to be monitored by a medical professional Chlorine gas is actually pretty harmless.

However back at the end of February the US captured Daoud al-Afari- ISIL's chemical weapons chief. In this context a mention of chemical weapons alongside a show of US solidarity with France in the face of terrorism could trigger a lot of concern in the EU about exactly what Afari had revealed about ISIL's capabilities.

On Saturday (19/3/16) afternoon Los Angeles police announced that they had discovered a human skull close to the famous Hollywood sign in Griffith Park. This is similar to the Griffen High School involved in the bus accident. The skull is believed to belong to Hervey Medillin who was as Hispanic as his name would suggest.

As such Spain seemed to get the impression that all this US noise was directed at them. After all sitting extremely close to North Africa southern Spain actually used to be part of this medieval Islamic Caliphate that ISIL are trying to recreate. 

Plus the history of Irish Republicanism seems to have emerged as a theme for discussions about the war on ISIL. Both France & Spain are linked to this history through Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) who fought for an autonomous Basque nation straddling the border between Spain & France. I should point out though that due to the religious, sectarian element Irish lesson is probably of most use.

So on Sunday (20/3/16) 13 people were killed when a bus carrying Erasmus students crashed in similar fashion to the Griffen High School bus some 150km (90 miles) south of the Catalan capital Barcelona near the town of Freginals. That of course is not to be confused with Finglas in the Republic of Ireland.

Although the Basque region and the Catalan region are separate they both want independence for Spain. I've actually heard stories about the sort of firework display these Eramus students were returning from. Apparently when then fireworks finish and the bonfires are burning low the old rebel songs start coming out in force.  

At around 22:35 on 22/3/16 (UK date) this is sadly as far as I can get tonight. I will finish up tomorrow. Possibly in a separate post.

However in light of today's triple bombings in Brussels, Belgium I'm looking back at what I've covered and thinking of what I've still got to write. I can't help but wonder if maybe an important detail got missed amid all that noise.

Here Come the Cat Pics.

On Friday (18/3/16) a US Marine was killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq's Kurdish north.

Unlike the US Special Forces operator who was killed in a raid on May 16th 2015 (16/5/15) this Marine was killed in an attack on the base where he was stationed. The attack confirmed the existence of the base which had been constructed as part of an expansion of the US' ground operations in Iraq.

Also on Friday Saleh Abdeslam, the alleged mastermind of the November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres was finally captured by police in Brussels, Belgium. He remains in custody in Belgium awaiting extradition to France.

Taken individually either one of these developments will take time to explain fully. For example the US Marine's death seems to have been initially reported as an accident aboard a US aircraft carrier stationed in the Atlantic. However occurring at almost the same time they seem to have triggered quite a lot of frantic discussion. Particularly about the Marquis de Lafayette - the US' oldest French ally.

Annoyingly in order to put any of these events in their proper context I need to cover them all at the same time. Simply trying to focus on any one in isolation just isn't going to work. Due to the inflexibility of my life I'm not going to be able to make time to do that today.

However there is a reason why I have not prioritised the capture of Saleh Abdeslam above more recent events this weekend. Unlike with the March 2013 Boston Marathon bombings or even the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris we know that Abdeslam is part of a much wider organisation. 

Therefore his captured doesn't really alter the current terror threat in any way. If anything it slightly increases it in the immediate term by creating the risk his co-conspirators may seek revenge.

Also I don't really want to be getting into giving a running commentary of the case. As an example of why since the Paris Massacres certain news outlets have taken pleasure in speculating that Abdeslam chickened out of conducting a suicide bombing himself and had been shunned by ISIL as a result. 

Almost immediately after his capture Abdeslam confirmed this story to investigators. This is exactly the sort of lie he would make up to protect a wider ISIL network in Europe. However I gather that now he's been questioned for a few days his story has begun to change.

Today several terrorist bombings have struck the Belgian capital Brussels. Two occurred in the terminals of the Zaventem Airport while a third struck the Maelbeek underground rail (Metro) station. This is main Metro station serving the institutional buildings of the European Union (EU) in Brussels.

As this still early stage details are scarce. However the nicest thing I can say about the situation is that much of the talk over the previous couple of days has been about chemical weapons - particularly pre-cursor agents for VX Gas which is a very nasty nerve agent.

In terms of the next step; You remember all those things I said need to be done following the Paris Massacres that weren't done? Well they need to be done.

The main one of these of course is for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to convene an emergency meeting to invoke it's Article 5 mutual defence clause.

If US President Barack Obama can't be bothered to return from his Caribbean mini-break or again tries to block the invocation of Article 5 then I'm inclined to think that he's already overstayed his welcome.

13:25 on 22/3/16 (UK date).