Operation Featherweight: Month 20, Week 4, Day 1.

On Tuesday (15/3/16) Russia began withdrawing its air forces from Syria.

As I explained at the time this placed almost sole responsibility on the US to complete two tasks that are vital to the defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups.

The first of these tasks was to block the resumption of the Train & Equip program.

In the 14 months it operated between August 2014 and October 2015 Train & Equip was the mechanism by which the US transferred training, weapons and other equipment to ISIL's replacement - the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF). This is a coalition of numerous groups of which the two largest are the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF) and the more extreme Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant (FML)/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham).

What the US would do is bring JAF fighters out of Syria into Turkey where they would be trained and equipped under cover names such as Division 30 (D30), Division 13 (D13) and the Falcons of the Levant/Suqur al-Sham. They would then be sent back into Syria where they would immediately 'defect' and rejoin the JAF to fight alongside ISIL against the Syrian government.

The second task was to seal the roughly 100km (60 mile) stretch of Syria's border with Turkey between the Euphrates River and the town of Azaz which has become known as "Erdogan's Pocket." Or seeing as it's Saint Patrick's Day - 'Garvaghy Road.' This corridor is being used by Turkey to supply the JAF. They don't even bother use proxies such as D13 and D30 and instead are happy to supply ANF and Ahrar al-Sham directly.

Both of these objectives have become critical in the last week or so due a series of chemical weapons attacks.

The first of these took place on March 8th (8/3/16) when JAF forces - including D13 - used Yellow Phosphorous to attack positions belonging to the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) within Aleppo City. Throughout the conflict the YPG have of course consistently been the most effective anti-ISIL force in Syria despite receiving only a fraction of the support given by the US to the JAF.

The second attack occurred on March 10th (10/3/16) in the Iraqi town of Taza - 10km (6 miles) south of Kirkuk. Here ISIL used both Chlorine and low-grade Sulphur Mustard Gas against the civilian population. This wounded 600 civilians and killed an infant girl prompting mass protests from the local residents.

As always seems to be the case when faced with a job to do the US responded by throwing a loud tantrum in an effort to make it everybody else's problem. This took the form of shutting down the entire Washington D.C underground rail (Metro) system for 29 hours between for 04:00 (GMT) Wednesday (16/3/16) and 09:00 (GMT) today.

You may remember that back on January 12th 2015 (12/1/15) L'enfant Plaza station which sits at the centre of the D.C Metro system had to be evacuated after it filled with a noxious gas.

This occurred at a time when the Obama administration was trying to justify its support for ISIL and associated groups by accusing the Syrian government of dropping barrel bombs filled with Chlorine gas on civilians. The problem with that was that as with all the other accusations made by the Obama administration against the Syrian government there was scant evidence that it was actually happening.

As I foolishly demonstrated just the other week the ingredients to make Chlorine gas exist in pretty much every building in the developed World. Therefore any time any building - particularly large industrial ones - is damaged in a conventional explosion it is likely that a small quantity of Chlorine gas will be released alongside various toxic chemicals such as cyanide gas from burning plastic.

Plus it is extremely easy for a psychological warfare outfit like Syria Civil Defence (AKA: "The White Helmets") to splash a bit of Chlorine about following an explosion in an effort to smear their enemy.

Then of course there is the issue that Chlorine gas is only technically considered a chemical weapon because all forms of gas are banned during warfare. Therefore while the civilian police can douse civilian protesters in as much tear gas as they like soldiers aren't actually allowed to use it against each other during war.

Rather than being a poison Chlorine is merely an irritant like tear gas or pepper spray. As such it simply irritates the tissues in the lungs causing you to cough in much the same way that sometimes house dust irritates the tissues in the nose causing you to sneeze.

Obviously though Chlorine is a more powerful irritant than dust and often exists in higher concentrations so the coughing fits it produces are longer and more violent. So while being exposed to Chlorine gas is an extremely unpleasant experience that is all it is.

The January 2015 evacuation of L'enfant Plaza station therefore was to highlight just how melodramatic and unwarranted the accusations the Obama administration were making against the Syrian government actually were. French speakers may even have got the distinct impression that Obama was being referred to as a child.

The Yellow Phosphorous and Sulphur Mustard Gas being used by ISIL and associated groups are a much more serious proposition than Chlorine.

They are both blister agents that cause chemical burns similar to the type of thermic burns you would get from touching a hot stove. On the relatively tough tissue of the skin these cause blisters which are extremely painful and carry with them a very real risk of infection and sepsis. However they completely destroy the soft tissues in the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. This causes people to effectively drown in a mixture of their own puss and blood.

With Sulphur Mustard Gas being a lot more difficult to produce than Chlorine this creates the obvious question of where ISIL and their associates are getting their supplies from.

You may remember that back in 2003 the US invaded in Iraq on the pretence of protecting the World from chemical weapons that Saddam Hussein could unleash in just 45 minutes. After occupying Iraq for the next 9 years the Americans eventually determined that there weren't even chemical weapons in Iraq to begin with.

While this was going on it was no secret that the Syrian government had vast stockpiles of chemical weapons including Sulphur Mustard and much more serious nerve agents such as Sarin and VX. However under United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2118 (2013) all of Syria's chemical weapons along with pre-cursor agents were removed from Syria and destroyed in August 2014. By the Americans.

Therefore the only way that ISIL and their allies can access chemical weapons is by importing them from a third nation.

That nation is strongly believed to be Turkey and the supply route is that stretch of border between Azaz and the Euphrates. Then of course there is the persistent question of why the chemical signatures of the Sarin used in Ghouta in 2013 didn't match anything in the Syrian government's stockpile.

This latest round of trouble on the D.C Metro centred on a stretch of track between "Foggy Bottom" and "Federal Triangle" stations.

The Republic of Ireland is currently preparing to mark the 100th anniversary of the so-called "Easter Rising" of 1916. There is a very famous song about this uprising called "Foggy Dew." The Iraqi town of Taza sits in a triangle of territory between Kirkuk, Baiji and Tikrit. The year long failure to liberate this triangle from ISIL control has become a symbol of the US' failure to devise a strategic plan to liberate any of Iraq from ISIL.

Therefore the intention of the D.C Metro closure was to make a lot of noise about this chemical weapons/Turkey issue. Particularly while the US Special Envoy on ISIL - Brett McGurk - was attending the annual Suli Forum in Iraq Kurdistan. However the resounding message seemed to be that fixing the problem would simply cause Washington too much disruption.

As the D.C Metro system re-opened this morning it became clear that once again the US had failed on both of those vital tasks.

Last night Train & Equip resumed with the US deploying 47 trained fighters along with weapons and equipment from Turkey into Syria. Their route of entry was Garvaghy Road. Even assuming that the problem with the vetting system have been resolved deploying such a small number of fighters into an area where they're surrounded by thousands of enemies can only be interpreted as an attempt to have them killed/captured and their weapons and equipment seized by Al Qaeda.

That dual failure by the US prompted Turkey to gloat loudly.

This took the form of a mythical Kurdish separatist group known as the "Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK)" to claim responsibility for Sunday's (13/3/16) terrorist bombing in Ankara. That is despite everybody knowing that the Turks carried out the attack themselves to make it look like a Russian retaliation for a terror attack Turkey carried out in Nazran, Russia on Friday (11/3/16).

The TAK were formed in 2003/4 by the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Their purpose was to prevent the Justice & Development Party (AKP) forming an alliance with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) against the MHP. The name "TAK" is actually a play on "AK" which is how the AKP refer to themselves.

The British government actually did something similar following the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998. In an effort to derail the agreement by discrediting the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) they set up a mythical splinter group calling themselves the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA). In the summer of 1998 between the Good Friday Agreement being signed and it going into force RIRA carried out the Omagh Bombing. This killed 31 civilians making it by far the worst terror attack carried out in the 30 years of the Troubles.

It almost goes without saying that two weeks after the February 17th (17/2/16) Ankara bombing which was also blamed on TAK the trial of the only Omagh bombing suspect - Seamus Daly - was halted by the Judge on March 1st (1/3/16). This was to send the message to Turkey that Britain is well aware that RIRA and the British Crown are one and the same thing.

Back on December 23rd (23/12/15) TAK were blamed for a small explosion aboard a Pegasus Airlines plane at Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen Airport that killed one. Here they were being used to discuss re-starting Train & Equip - particularly to the Falcons of the Levant group.

As such today's claim of responsibility by TAK for the March 13th (13/3/16) Ankara bombing was Turkey giving a big f*ck you to this European Union (EU) Summit on the refugees crisis by going;

"Yeah we carried out the Nazran bombing. We also carried out the Ankara bombing. And guess what; We've got US support for both!"

Germany responded by today closing it's Embassy in Ankara and its Consulate in Istanbul on the grounds that Turkey represents an imminent terrorist threat. We will see if they will stick to that position within the EU meeting or whether it is just US-style noise without purpose.

Today the Obama administration finally declared ISIL actions to be genocide. This is an almost entirely symbolic gesture which does rather beg the question of why it took them 20 months to make it.

Sadly this declaration does not mean that the Obama administration has suddenly developed a moral problem with ISIL's behaviour. Instead it is an entirely cynical move calculated to win the 2016 Presidential Election for Hillary Clinton by waging a bloody battle with Congress over the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice.

Yesterday (16/3/16) Obama addressed the nation to announce Merrick Garland as his choice for Supreme Court Justice. With Obama long ago giving up any right to appoint Supreme Court Justice's this will be blocked by Congress. The election meme that the Democrat campaign have dreamt up for this battle is a call for Congressional Republicans to; "#DoYourJob!"

On Monday (14/3/16) both Republican and Democrat members of Congress passed a motion by 383-0 giving Obama until today to declare ISIL as perpetrators of genocide.

It is obviously very difficult for Obama to demand that Congress does its job while he is very clearly refusing to do his.

17:50 on 17/3/16 (UK date).