Operation Featherweight: Month 20, Week 2, Day 6

On Friday February 26th (26/2/16) a ceasefire went into effect in Syria. 

That ceasefire obviously does not apply to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF) or any group associated with either ISIL or ANF.

With all armed groups in Syria either being associated with ISIL or ANF in some way or actively fighting against them the challenge has been to find a group that the ceasefire does apply to. The only group I can think of is Turkey. They are prevented by the ceasefire from attacking either the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) or the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) in defence of ISIL and ANF.

The problem is that alongside the ceasefire agreement Russia and Syrian government forces have unilaterally decided to cease almost all military action in Syria. Including against ISIL, ANF and the groups associated with them.

The reason for this seems to quite simply be fear on the part of the Russians.

Back in August of 2013 then head of Saudi intelligence Prince Bandar bin Sultan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at his country residence near Moscow. During that meeting Prince Bandar explicitly threatened Putin that unless Russia dropped its opposition to groups like ISIL and ANF Saudi Arabia would use Islamist terror groups to attack the 2014 Winter Olympics being held in Sochi. Saudi Arabia then leaked this threat to the World's media making the threat extremely public.

On December 29th 2013 (29/12/13) Saudi Arabia made good on its threat and Islamist terrorists carried out a suicide bombing at one of Volgograd's main railway stations killing 18. The following day (30/12/13) another suicide bombing was carried out on a trolley bus/tram in Volgograd that killed 16. Volgograd was of course the main transport hub for visitors to the Sochi Olympics.

It was only after the intelligence agencies from almost all members of the Olympic community got involved that bodies started mysteriously turning up dead and an attack on the Olympics itself was prevented. The destruction of Sochi's neighbour Ukraine during the Olympics and the sanctions on Russia that followed was of course a US apology to the Saudis for stopping them attacking the Olympics.

As such it seems obvious that Russia has once again been threatened by Saudi Arabia. Either they leave groups like ISIL and ANF in peace or the terror attacks will return.

For example just yesterday we had this curious story regarding Sochi born Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova. For the past 10 years Sharapova has been using a drug called Meldonium to control atrial fibrillation. Throughout she has kept the sports governing body - the International Tennis Federation (ITF) - informed of this fact.

Then on January 1st (1/1/16) the ITF added Meldonium to it's list of banned substances. As with all banned substances the ITF prevents it's use 28 days prior to competition to allow it to pass out of the body. On January 18th (18/1/16) Sharapova competed in the Australian Open competition and tested positive for Meldonium which had only been on the banned list for 18 days.

So it does look exactly as if the ITF has passed a rule specifically to target Sharapova and then made it impossible for her to comply with that new rule in order smear her. 

This of course comes hot on the heels of last autumn's World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigation into doping in Athletics. That WADA investigation was of course limited only to Russian athletes.

It's as if ISIL supporters are trying to ban Russia from the Olympics but don't want to admit they're doing it because they're ISIL supporters.

So on Monday February 29th (29/2/16) Gulchekhra Bobokulova beheaded a 4 year old child in her care and paraded with the severed head through the streets of Moscow close to the Oktyabrskoye Polye underground railway station. These were clearly the actions of an insane person. 

However at the time Mrs Bobokulova was wearing traditional Islamic dress, declaring herself to be a terrorist and threatening to detonate a suicide bomb as revenge for Russian air-strikes in Syria. 

Mrs Bobokulova is originally from Uzbekistan in the Caucuses. This region has sent a lot of fighters to join ISIL and is where the attackers in Volgograd originated from. As such Russia has played up the possibility of a link to ISIL in order to highlight the threat they find themselves under.

Funnily enough no Russian news channels were prepared to broadcast live footage of a woman waving an infant’s severed head about in the middle of the day. This prompted something of a discussion about media censorship within Russia. Some accused the Russian government of censoring the media to cover up the incident while others called on the Russian government to do more to censor the media to prevent the gruesome footage being shown.

This feeds into the wider cessation of hostilities agreement - particularly the way that the western media reports on Russia's actions. 

Over the five years that the war in Syria has been dragging on western politicians and the media have told so many lies about the nature of the conflict they seem to have lost the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction. The October 25th 2015 (25/10/15) reporting of a Russian air-strike on a hospital in Sarmin near Idlib City that simply did not happen being a particular case in point.

I don't think anyone is calling for the censorship of the media that would ban them on reporting the lies of ISIL, ANF and associated groups. However to avoid promoting the terrorist's cause they do need to make clear to their audience that those lies are indeed lies rather than presenting them as fact. They could also start referring to these groups by their proper names rather simply using the collective term; "Rebels."

The inaction of Russia and others is now starting to present a serious problem. ISIL, ANF and associated terror groups have now had almost two weeks of peace and quiet in which they have been able to regroup and become stronger. If the proposed UN backed peace-talks go ahead this situation risks becoming permanent.

That means that groups like ISIL and ANF will be granted permanent sanctuary within Syria from where they can plot attacks like the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres. It also means that the refugees that have been forced to flee those areas will be unable to return making the refugee crisis equally permanent.

With no-one actually doing anything at the moment everyone is instead sitting, waiting and watching everybody else to try and work out what they're going to do next. This is the type of situation that I find better suited to cryptic Tweets rather than long essays of explanation.

For it's part Turkey has completely failed to meet it's obligations under the ceasefire.

The most serious violation occurred less then 24 hours after the ceasefire went into force. 

On Saturday (27/2/16) Turkey allowed it's territory - specifically the Akcakale border town - to be used by ISIL to launch an attack against QSD forces in the Syrian border town of Tel Abyad. This ISIL assault was supported by artillery fire by the Turkish military.

On March 3rd (3/3/16) journalists embedded with the YPG witnessed convoys of vehicles guarded by the Turkish military travelling through the Bab al-Salam border crossing into ANF camps just outside Azaz in northern Syria. 

The contents of those convoys are believed to be the same as the convoy of weapons including artillery shells that was stopped by Turkish police in January 2014. The Turkish police officers who stopped that convoy and the journalists who reported on it have since been charged with treason.

Those Turkish supplied weapons have been used by ANF to attack the YPG in both Aleppo City and the near-by city of Afrin on an almost daily basis. 

Although it will take too long for me to list them here I have in front of me a list of 10 specific attacks on the YPG by ANF and associated groups between February 26th (26/2/16) and March 3rd (3/3/16). That list includes the specific firing locations, the specific type of weapons used and the specific names of each group along with the names of the commanding officers responsible. 

Knowing exactly what it is doing Turkey expects that action will be taken to prevent it's continued aggressive and wholly illegal actions. As such it has been hunkering down in preparation for the backlash.

You may remember that back on January 6th 2015 (6/1/15) a female suicide bomber attacked a police station in Istanbul. At the time we were assured that this attack had been carried out by the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C). 

With the DHKP-C largely being a fictional group associated with the mythical Ergenekon group in Turkey's murky politics the implication was that the attack was carried by members of the so-called "Deep State" linked to the Republican Peoples Party (CHP) to oust the Justice & Development Party (AKP) of Turkish Prime Minister/President/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Therefore voters should rally around the AKP at the upcoming election.

The problem was that the attacker was very quickly identified as Diana Ramazova - a Muslim from the Russian Caucus region of Dagestan. She had previously travelled to Syria via Turkey in June 2014 to marry an ISIL fighter from Norway who was then killed in battle.

On March 3rd (3/3/16) five people were committed to trial for assisting Ms Ramazova in the attack. Despite three of the five being Turkish nationals much is being made of the fact that Ms Ramazova was technically a Russian citizen. The implication being that it was actually a Russian attack against Turkey. Therefore Turkish voters should rally around Erdogan and the AKP against Russian aggression.

Also on March 3rd (3/3/16) two women launched a grenade and gun attack against a police bus in Istanbul in which there were no casualties. Although the attackers were conveniently killed shortly afterwards we were again assured that they were members of the DHKP-C. 

This time much was made of the DHKP-C's Hammer & Sickle logo which is inspired by the Communist flag of Soviet Russia. The implication again being that it was a Russian attack against Turkey. Therefore Turkish voters should rally around Erdogan and the AKP against Russian aggression.

Since then barely an hour has gone by without the Turks announcing that they've uncovered some sort of terrorist weapons stash belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). These are all described as "Russian Weapons" and have been claimed to included anti-aircraft missiles to imply a PKK attack against Incirilk airbase. Judging by events in Northern Ireland since March 3rd (3/3/16) I think it's fair to assume that British intelligence does not believe a word of this.

The reason why Turkey has suddenly become very sensitive to the issue of anti-aircraft missiles is the air-strikes it's been conducting against anti-ISIL forces in northern Iraq since July 2015. Sometime towards the end of February/start of March the PKK managed to shoot down one of the Turkish attack helicopters conducting those strikes killing both crew members.

If you are not familiar with the T129 type attack helicopter in question there is a reason for that. 

It began life as a pan-European project to build an attack helicopter to rival the US AH-64 Apache. Then the UK and the Netherlands got permission to buy Apache's from the US so pulled out of the project. Realising the technology was already seriously out of date Germany, France and Spain also pulled out in favour of developing the EC665 Tiger. This left Turkey with the T129.

You don't need an anti-aircraft missile to take down a T129. In fact if you're skilled and lucky enough you can bring one down with an assault rifle.

Curiously the US appeared to mock Turkey for the loss of its helicopter by staging the crash landing of light aircraft near Erbil in northern Iraq on Saturday (5/3/16). One assumes the next step is to provide the Peshmerga with anti-aircraft missiles to ensure Turkey's compliance with international law.

Perhaps sensing that pressure is mounting Erdogan has set about silencing dissent. 

On March 4th (4/3/15) a Turkish Court ordered the government to take control of the Zaman newspaper and on March 5th (5/3/16) Turkish police stormed the building to enforce the court order. With Zaman long being the biggest selling newspaper in Turkey this is the equivalent of the US government shutting down of the New York Times because it didn't like an article it had printed.

Today Turkish police have raided the offices of the Cihan News Agency in an apparent effort to close it down. Cihan distributes the CNN International, BBC News, CBS, MSNBC, ABC and Bloomberg cable news channels within Turkey.

As such the European Union's (EU) decision to meet with the Turkish Prime Minister yesterday can only be described as bizarre. However I think that is a topic I will need to deal with fully and separately.

18:15 on 8/3/16 (UK date).