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.