Operation Featherweight: Month 25, Week 2, Day 7.

In my previous post on the topic I highlighted the importance of a stretch of the border between Turkey and Syria which has become know as either; "Erdogan's Pocket" or "Garvaghy Road."

This area stretches for roughly 100km (60 miles) between the town of Azaz in the west and the Euphrates River in the east. It extends around 55km (35 miles) south to Aleppo City. It functions as the main supply route for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the associated Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) Islamist coalition. It can also serve as an escape route for these terror groups as they are finally driven from Iraq and Syria.

I also highlighted how Erdogan's Pocket has come under intense pressure recently. To the east the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) coalition have been conducting an operation to liberate the town of Manbij which sits on the western bank of the Euphrates. To the south the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) have been moving the block Erdogan's pocket as it enters the north of Aleppo City via the Castello Road.

This of course is not the first time that Erdogan's Pocket has come under intense pressure. It's not even the first time this year.

Back in January the SAA backed by Russia airpower managed to liberate the village of Rabia from the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB) who are an irregular and therefore illegal division of the Turkish military currently operating within Syria as part of the JAF coalition . Rabia sits roughly 35km (20 miles) north-west of Latakia City and around 105km (60 miles) south-west of Aleppo City. The liberation of Rabia meant that the STB had been completely ousted from Latakia province.

Following that success Russia decided to support the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in the so-called "Afrin Canton" who operated outside of the QSD coalition. Their objective was capture first the town of Tall Rifat which sits around 15km (9 miles) south of Azaz which they achieved. From there they were expected to continue their western advance until the linked up with the QSD on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. Thus sealing Erdogan's Pocket.

It was at this point the supposedly independent and impartial international aid agencies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations (UN) along with many western human rights bodies such as Human Rights Watch and much of the western media suddenly decided that there was a looming humanitarian catastrophe in the town of Madaya. This sits around 25km (14 miles) north-west of the Syrian capital Damascus.

As I explained at the time the humanitarian situation in towns like Madaya is being created entirely by the JAF forces. What they do is seize any food aid provided by groups such as the UN and the ICRC. Then rather like drug dealers they restrict the supply of that food to the civilians they are effectively holding hostage in order to drive up prices. It is through these artificially inflated prices that the JAF fund their violence in an extremely nasty form of taxation.

However the supposedly impartial aid groups such as the ICRC and the UN who are effectively funding JAF decided to blame the entire situation on the Syrian government and Russia. They used the faux outrage their misleading statements produced to put pressure on the Syrian government and Russia to agree to a number of 'humanitarian ceasefires.' Thus stopping the YPG's operation on Tall Rifat dead keeping Erdogan's Pocket open for a little while longer.

The YPG operation against Tall Rifat and then Azaz was also halted by the fact the Turkish military started shelling them intensely from the Turkish side of the border. For some reason neither the US-led coalition Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) nor the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) were unwilling or unable to stop their member Turkey taking wholly illegal military action in support of ISIL in defiance of several UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

Back in mid-April the JAF having been emboldened by the preservation of Erdogan's Pocket launched an operation to capture the M5 Highway from the SAA. This runs to the south of Aleppo City linking it up with the rest of Syria. The JAF's operation failed and the SAA responded by launching a counter-offensive to liberate Castello Road cutting Aleppo City off from Erdogan's Pocket.

In response to the SAA's counter-offensive the JAF coalition - specifically the Syria Civil Defence (White Helmets) division - launched a propaganda offensive. This used their favourite tool - Atrocity Propaganda.

They claimed that the SAA had launched horrific barrel bomb attacks against a number of hospitals in the areas of Aleppo City occupied by by the JAF.

As I explained at the time the problem with this claim is that there aren't actually any hospitals in Aleppo City to be bombed. Under the Geneva convention laws of war a hospital must be used exclusively as a medical facility with no military purpose. It must also be clearly marked as a hospital and have a clearly marked boundary surrounding it. It must also obtain what is termed an Article 18 certificate which allows all forces to be informed by the ICRC of the hospital's location.

The JAF simply refuse to do this because the propaganda value of claiming a hospital is being bombed is considered so high. Therefore instead they hide their medical facilities in or close to military bases. Therefore whenever any of these military targets are destroyed the JAF can pretend that it was a hospital.

Also you need to be extremely suspicious of these claimed barrel bomb attacks. Often they are actually the work of a weapon known as a "Hell Cannon." This is homemade mortar that fires a cooking gas cylinder packed with explosives. The intention being that it drops vertically onto the roof of its target smashing through all the floors before exploding. It is intended to mimic an airstrike.

Therefore what the JAF frequently do is fire a Hell Cannon at a civilian building or a hospital in an area they occupy in order to create an atrocity which can then be blamed on the SAA or the Russians.

The JAF's claims in mid-late April though were backed by a carefully marshaled social media campaign under the hashtag #AleppoIsBurning. The conventional media's failure to ask basic questions about the JAF's claims obviously helped fuel this campaign.

Obviously there are members of the UNSC who don't need an excuse. However the #AleppoIsBurning campaign was so effective that it prompted a special UNSC meeting on May 3rd (3/5/16). This resulted in the passing of a resolution condemning attacks against medical facilities and calling on all parties to refrain from doing so in future.

This immense diplomatic pressure of course stopped the Russian backed SAA operation to liberate the northern Castello Road in its tracks keeping Erdogan's Pocket open for a little while longer.

It should come as no surprise to anyone then what happened when the SAA launched its latest operation to liberate the northern Castello Road in the last days on June.

On July 6th (6/7/16) - the day before the SAA secured what is termed "Fire Control" over the Castello Road - we had the shooting of Philando Castile in St Paul, Minnesota, US during a traffic stop.

Obviously this could have been a complete coincidence.

However it is well established that through groups like the Nation of Islam there is a clear overlap between the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and radical Islamist groups such as ISIL. Due to its relatively large Muslim population Minnesota is the state which has sent more recruits to ISIL than any other US state.

The way that Castile's girlfriend Diamond Reynolds caused his death by streaming it live of Facebook for propaganda purposes was extremely similar to the behaviour of ISIL terrorist Larossi Abballa who murdered two police officers in Magananville, France on June 13th (13/6/16).

Therefore it is entirely possible that the entire thing was orchestrated by the JAF's backers as a threat to the US. Simply put unless the US prevents Castello Road being liberated Black Lives Matter would be unleashed to mount attacks like the one seen in Dallas, Texas on July 7th (7/6/16).

Obviously the US Democrats were already using Black Lives Matter through the July 5th (5/7/16) Alton Sterling case to intimidate the US defence & legal establishment into not excluding Hillary Clinton from the Presidential race over the 110 offences of espionage against the US she was found to have committed on July 5th (5/7/16).

Then of course there was the now obligatory claim of an atrocity in Syria. What was interesting about this one though is that it focused not on Russian/Syrian airstrikes in Aleppo City but on CJTFOIR airstrikes close to Manbij.

It appears that on July 19th (19/7/16) ISIL detonated a remote controlled bomb on a road out of Manbij killing 56 civilians who were fleeing fighting in the city. This is a very common ISIL tactic that the used numerous times in the battles for Ramadi and Fallujah in Iraq.  However on this occasion ISIL filmed the aftermath of the attack and released the footage on the Internet claiming that it was the result of a CJTFOIR airstrike.

Again this story was taken at face value by much of the conventional media fuelling a social media campaign under the hashtag "#PrayForSyria." This campaign was clearly focused on pressuring CJTFOIR to stop providing air-support to the QSD in an effort to leave ISIL in control of Manbij keeping Erdogan's Pocket open a little while longer.

Ironically this practice of a social media propaganda campaign to aid either JAF or ISIL has become such a matter of routine that there was a dedicated session on this type of "Terrorist Messaging" scheduled at the ISIL coalition meeting the following day - July 21st (21/7/16).

The other thing that has thrown the fight against ISIL and their associates into a degree of chaos was the failed Turkish Rising of July 15th (15/7/16).

As the name suggests Erdogan's Pocket was established and is being kept open by Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The main way that he is doing this is by using it as the price CJTFOIR must pay for use of USAF base Incirilk in Turkey.

As I've said on numerous occasions Erdogan's ability to do this comes mainly from a complete failure of leadership by US President Obama.

After all simply invoking NATO's Article 5 would remove any choice Erdogan has over the use of Incirilk. Also between 2003 and 2011 the US had absolutely no problem flying combat missions from Iraq. If you look on Google Earth you can still see the US aircraft parked on taxiways on airbases in Iraq.

Although it was the US who crushed the rising by granting Erdogan airtime on CNN to address the nation Erdogan has responded to the rising by blaming it on the US is order to whip the Turkish population into an anti-American frenzy. This is being used to exert more pressure on the US over Incirilk.

For example immediately following the rising Erdogan sealed off Incirilk shutting down the airspace, blocking access and even cutting off the power supply effectively holding the 1,500 US troops and 50-90 US nuclear warheads stationed there. This continued until July 22nd (22/7/16).

This was followed up by a massive truck bombing in the Kurdish city of Qamishli on July 27th (27/7/16).

Qamishli is located right on the border with Turkey roughly 95km (55 miles) west of Syria's border with Iraq and roughly 265km (160 miles) east of the Euphrates. It's main attraction is that it has an international airport with a runway large enough to accommodate civilian passenger jets let alone small military jet such as the American A-10. Therefore if Erdogan were to deny the use of Incirilk it would be extremely easy for CJTFOIR to operate from Qamishli instead.

As such this bombing in a city hundreds of kilometres from the nearest frontline seemed intended to increase CJTFOIR's dependence of Incirilk by giving the impression it was to dangerous to operate from Qamishli. I am still trying to get to the bottom of how the truck bomb arrived in Qamishli but the city of Nusaybin directly across the border in Turkey would be my first line of enquiry.

With Erdogan seemingly reassured of the importance of Incirilk pressured resumed there with Islamist, anti-American protests on July 28th (28/7/16). 

On August 1st (1/8/16)  U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford made the first official US visit to Turkey following the rising arriving at Incirilk. The night before Dunford's arrival Turkish security forces again sealed and raided Incirilk. 

Officially this was for a "safety inspection." However it was intended to trigger rumours of another US-led rising stirring further anti-American feeling amongst the Turkish public. This then aids Erdogan to exert further pressure on the US.

Today it's been reported that Manbij has been fully liberated from ISIL while the JAF coalition have broken through SAA lines south of Aleppo City. 

Still being in the process of catching up I'm yet to check those claims in detail. 

21:55 on 6/8/16 (UK date).