Operation Featherweight: Month 22, Week 1, Day 5.

On April 20th (20/4/16) US President Barack Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia for a leaders summit of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) that took place the following day (21/4/16).

Saudi Arabia is of course responsible for the controversial High Negotiations Committee (HNC). Headed by extremist Islamist groups such as the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI) and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham) the HNC represents the opposition to the Syrian government at the UN sponsored Geneva talks. This is despite it excluding many of Syria's religious and ethnic minorities. Particularly the Kurds who make up around 10% of the Syrian population.

As a result I have been trying to keep my head down for the duration of Obama's latest round of travels. Fortunately everyone in Syria and Iraq seems to have been trying to do the same thing. Obviously this does not mean that all fighting suddenly stopped.

The latest round of renewed fighting centred around Aleppo province - particularly around the the provincial capital Aleppo City and the border with Latakia province - has continued along with fighting in the suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus - particularly Douma - has continued. However there have not been any significant gains or losses by any particular group and no-one has been launching fresh operations since my last post.

At the instruction of Mohammed Alloush - the head of the JAI and senior HNC negotiator - the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition launched an offensive entitled "Retaliation For Grievances" on Monday April 18th (18/4/16). Alongside the Army of Islam, Ahrar al-Sham and the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB) the other major force within the Army of Conquest coalition is Al Nusra Front (ANF) who are Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.

In response to the Retaliation For Grievances offensive which they called for the HNC withdrew from the Geneva talks late on Monday (18/4/16) night. This was intended to exert pressure during the GCC Summit on US President Obama to take tougher action to speed up the overthrow of the Syrian government.

In order to further ratchet up that pressure the following days saw a massive increase in the HNC's Atrocity Propaganda efforts. A recognised form of psychological warfare the purpose of Atrocity Propaganda is to gain an advantage over your enemy by damaging their reputation by accusing them of committing atrocities. As such the last almost two weeks has seen a significant increase in accusations of civilians being killed in Syrian government air and artillery strikes.

There are several significant problems with taking these claims at face value.

The first of these is that often the alleged atrocity simply hasn't happened. A prime example of this occurred on October 20th 2015 (20/10/15) when Russia was accused of destroying the Syrian-American Medical Centre (SAMC) in the town of Sarmin which sits around 5km (3 miles) east of Idlib City. Despite news of this 'atrocity' being flashed across the globe it quickly emerged that either the hospital had been completely rebuilt within 24hrs or this attack had simply never taken place. The fact that the video released 'proving' the attack showed the hospital intact and operating should have been a clue that the claim was entirely false.

The second problem is that often the details of an attack against a military target will be lied about to artificially inflate the 'civilian' death toll. It is quite common for it to be claimed that civilians have been 'massacred' in an airstrike only for it to emerge that the airstrike had actually occured at a different location and the corpses of dead fighters had been reposition and redressed to make it appear as though they were civilians.

The other main problem is that many of the terror groups within Syria - particularly the Army of Islam (JAI) - make extensive use of civilians as human shields to protect their military bases. When you frequently hear of airstrikes killing civilians at markets in Douma where the JAI are based what has often happened is that JAI military buildings located next to the market have been destroyed. This even extends to the fighters using their own wives, children and extended families as human shields. This problem was actually highlighted by US Air Force Major General Peter Gersten at a press conference on Tuesday (26/4/16).

During the 2014 Gaza war the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) introduced at tactic known as "The Roof Knock." This involved either dropping an inert bomb or detonating a small explosive in the air over a building that was to be targeted. The intention being to warn civilians within the building of the impending airstrike in order to give them time to evacuate thus saving their lives.

While politicians and the media were queueing up to condemn Israel for the "Disproportionate Use of Force" during the 2014 Gaza war other militaries - including the US - were queueing up to learn the techniques the Israelis had developed to minimise the civilian casualties. At an unspecified date prior to April 5th (5/4/16) the US conducted a real world test of the Roof Knock against building occupied by the the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

In a very carefully planned and monitored operation the purpose of the US Roof Knock was to save the life of one specific civilian woman and one specific civilian child that were known to be in the building. The US deemed the operation to be a failure because the ISIL fighters simply trampled that woman and child to death as they rushed to escape the air-strike. 

As a result that US operation recorded two civilian deaths although they had been killed before the actual air-strike took place.

The main source for Atrocity Propaganda in Syria is an organisation calling itself "Syrian Civil Defence" or simply "The White Helmets." Based in Turkey this group is funded out of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and headed by a British Mercenary James Le Mesurier.

Obviously admitting that Syrian Civil Defence are a group of foreign funded mercenaries dedicated to the illegal overthrow of the Syrian government would rather damage their credibility somewhat. As such the public face of the organisation is a man called Raed Saleh who was born in Syria but currently lives in Turkey. 

On Tuesday (26/4/16) Saleh was scheduled to pick up an award from InterAction - a US based coalition of  Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO's) in Washington D.C, US. However on arrival at US Customs Saleh was informed that his visa had been revoked and he was denied entry into America. 

No reason was given for this however it tends to occur when an individual has been linked to a terrorist group and deemed a threat to national security.

The cause of this latest round of renewed fighting in Syria was Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan's week long visit to the US between March 28th (28/3/16) and April 3rd (3/4/16). This visit saw the resumption of the US Train & Equip program to provide training and equipment to Army of Conquest in Syria. The first confirmed delivery of US trained and equipped fighters to the Army of Conquest took place the night before the Turkish visit began.

As with all the rest of their supplies this fresh batch of US backed fighters travelled into Turkey along a roughly 100km (60 mile) stretch of Syria's border with Turkey. Stretching from Azaz in the west through to the Euphrates River in the east the supply corridor has become known as "Erdogan's Pocket" after Erdogan ordered the Army of Conquest to cede the town of Marea at its heart to ISIL in August 2015. This was done to provide an excuse for Turkey to mount an invasion of Syria in support of both the Army of Conquest and ISIL.

Turkey seems to have taken the resumption of Train & Equip as a full US endorsement of both its support of the JAF and ISIL and of Erdogan's Pocket. 

Within days the Army of Conquest launched their fresh offensive against Latakia province and within Aleppo province. Here their main objective seems to be the capture of the Sheikh Masqood district of Aleppo City from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). To this end the civilians in the Sheikh Masqood district have been subject to constant artillery attacks carried out by the Army of Conquest including two chemical weapons attacks carried out by the Army of Islam specifically.

The Syrian Turkmen Brigade (STB) coalition within the Army of Conquest coalition though initially focused their attentions eastwards to capture the border town of Cobaney which sits around 40km (24 miles) east of the Euphrates from ISIL. 

The ultimate objective of this eastwards push was to capture the town of Jarablus that sits on the western banks of the Euphrates in order to prevent the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) crossing the Euphrates to seal Erdogan's Pocket. The SDF/QSD are a YPG dominated coalition who have repeatedly proved themselves to be the most effective anti-ISIL force in Syria.

Initially this STB offensive made significant progress with Cobaney being captured within 8 days on April 9th (9/4/16). However then Turkey seemed to get the impression that neither STB control of Erdogan's Pocket nor an STB offensive into QSD controlled territory east of the Euphrates would be tolerated. As such the STB started rapidly handing all the territory they've gained back to ISIL. The extremely low-level fighting between the STB and ISIL in this area has been described by the US military as; "A shoving match."

Although it is lacking in intensity the STB's push east along with the wider Army of Conquest offensives south towards Aleppo City and west towards Latakia province has caused a fresh wave of Internally Displaced People (IDP) to flock to Syria's border with Turkey. The tone of Turkey's coverage to this has been to suggest that unless Turkey gets what it want it will open the border to these IDP's and then send them on to Europe as Irregular Migrants. Turkey does not and has never recognised those fleeing war in Syria as refugees.

The STB's retreat from Cobaney has coincided with fresh exchanges of cross-border artillery fire between ISIL and the regular Turkish Army. This has generally been centred around the Turkish town of Kilis around 15km (10 miles) north of Azaz on the western border of Erdogan's Pocket. In response Turkey has increased its military presence along the border across all of Erdogan's Pocket.

As such it seems that Turkey has gone back to it's Plan A. Using ISIL's presence within Erdogan's Pocket as an excuse for a formal military invasion of Syria in order to secure its supply lines with both the Army of Conquest and ISIL.

It is rumoured that roughly 12 days ago the US gave Turkey an ultimatum. Either the STB completely removes any and all ISIL presence from within Erdogan's Pocket or the US will back the QSD to cross the Euphrates to seal the area. It is also rumoured that the US has purchased land just outside the city of Kobane - 30km (20 miles) east of the Euphrates - to be used as a base for Apache-style attack helicopters in support of this operation.

The announcement on Sunday (24/4/16) that the US is to send a further 250 Special Forces operators to QSD controlled territory in Syria along with the announcement on Tuesday (26/4/16) that the US is to deploy High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to Turkey's border with Syria would certainly add credence to those rumours.

It almost goes without saying that the White Helmets have suddenly discovered another 'atrocity' and are demanding that action is taken to protect those within Erdogan's Pocket.

17:05 on 29/4/16 (UK date).