Operation Featherweight: Month 27, Week 5, Day 2.

In my post yesterday I took a look at the steps currently underway to prepare for a possible future operation to liberate the northern Iraq city of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

For reasons that are almost impossible for me to explain let alone justify a key part of the current preparations seem to centre around leaving a roughly 20,000kmsq (12,000 milesq) corridor west of Mosul in order to allow ISIL to escape back into Syria. I have decided to name this corridor the; "Falls Road" after the Falls Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

When they reach Iraq's border with Syria the Falls Road will carry ISIL's fighters up the Euphrates River into their heartlands including the group's de facto capital - the Syrian city of Raqqa. It is where the Euphrates basin enters Turkey that the Falls Road meets Garvaghy Road.

Garvaghy Road is of course the roughly 100km (60 mile) stretch of Syria's border with Turkey between the Euphrates River to the east and Azaz/Kilis to the west. On August 24th (24/8/16) the Turkish military invaded and then occupied this area with the specific objective of keeping ISIL's supply line between Raqqa and Turkey open. In the 59 days since then this occupation has not come to an end. Instead it has expanded.

On Sunday (16/10/16) it was announced that elements of the Al Qaeda led Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) backed by Turkey had taken over control of the town of Dabiq in Syria from ISIL.

Located around 30km (20 miles) north of Aleppo City and around 20km (12 miles) south-east of Azaz Dabiq was the site of the decisive defeat of the Mamluk Empire in 1516 which saw the Ottoman Empire expand the last Islamist Caliphate across the Middle-East, North Africa (MENA). For this reason ISIL have long promised that Dabiq will be the site of the battle in which the Caliphate defeats the infidels - particularly Shia Muslims.

The reason why the Turkish backed Army of Conquest was so easily able to take control of Dabiq has now become all too apparent.

As with the town of Jarablus on the western banks on the Euphrates which was the first Syrian city Turkey invaded the ISIL fighters have now simply been absorbed into the Army of Conquest. Specifically they will now be fighting for the Army of Conquest under the banner of their Army of Liberation/Jaish al-Tahrir division who are currently based just north of Azaz.

Having established control over Dabiq Turkey is now threatening to cycle control of the town of al-Bab from ISIL to the Army of Conquest in similar fashion.

Sitting roughly 35km (20 miles) north-east of Aleppo City and 40km (25 miles) south-west of Manbij along the M4 Motorway al-Bab is a critical node on ISIL's supply route to and from Turkey. If it remains under ISIL control or Turkey is able to re-brand it as being under Army of Conquest control then it will render the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) control of Manbij irrelevant.

Therefore in order to cut their supply lines which is a non-negotiable pre-requisite to defeating ISIL the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - will have to back the SDF to take control of al-Bab. Either from ISIL or from the Army of Conquest. Although just as necessary that second option is certainly politically more sensitive.

While awaiting a decision on al-Bab Turkey has being busying itself by launching attacks on the SDF.

From Monday (17/10/16) both ISIL and the Army of Conquest with the support of Turkey have been launching sustained artillery attacks against SDF positions in and around the villages of Um-Hosh and Um-Qura. These sit to the south of Azaz and to the south-west of Dabiq.

Yesterday (20/10/16) those Turkish artillery attacks were expanded to include the civilian towns of Rajo and Jindres which sit around 5km (3 miles) from Turkey's border with Syria around 35km (20 miles) west of Azaz.

They were also expanded to include the civilian city of Qamishili which sits on Syria's border with Turkey some 285km (170 miles) east of the Euphrates River. Qamishili is so far inside the roughly 12,000kmsq (7,200 milesq) buffer/safe-zone* that the SDF has established across northern Syria it is actually closer to Syria's border with Iraq some 100km (60 miles) east.

As far as I can tell at time of writing Turkish artillery attacks against all of those areas continue today. They certainly continue against the civilian areas of Rajo and Jindres.

Turkey's most wanton acts of aggression against the SDF however occurred on Wednesday (19/10/16) night through to Thursday (20/10/16) morning.

Here the Turkish airforce carried out 26 waves of airstrikes against SDF positions both in and around Um-Hosh and Um-Qura and in the Shiekh Maqsood district of Aleppo City. At the very north of Aleppo City the SDF controlled Shiekh Maqsood district sits almost exactly on the fault line between western Aleppo City and Army of Conquest occupied east of Aleppo City.

Turkey has claimed that these airstrikes killed more than 200 members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The obvious problem with that is that the PKK is a political party based in Turkey. However Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken to referring to any Kurd anywhere in the World as a member of the PKK. Erdogan has also been desperately trying to portray Turkey's People Democratic Party (HDP) as the political wing as the PKK as he tries to grasp all power for himself.

The particular problem with Turkey claiming that it had targeted the PKK with these airstrikes is that the units of the SDF active in and around particularly Um-Hosh and Um-Qura aren't even the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) elements of the SDF coalition. Instead it's the Revolutionary Army/Jaish al-Thuwar elements who Sunni-Arabs and founder members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

When the FSA fragmented several years ago many elements of what was always a loose coalition rather than an army joined up with Army of Conquest or ISIL. However Jaish al-Thuwar joined forces with the YPG to form the SDF along with various other FSA fragments and Assyrian and Sunni-Arab tribal forces.

As I'm sure you've heard since roughly September 20th (20/9/16) the Syrian government back by Russia airpower has been conducting an operation to liberate the east of Aleppo City from the Army of Conquest.

Almost from the moment that began many western nations led by the US and France along with, to their shame, official bodies of the United Nations (UN) have been calling for that operation to be halted.

On October 6th (6/10/16) the UN's Special Envoy for Syria Steffan de Mistura offered to personally escort the Army of Conquest from east Aleppo.

Russia took him up on this offer tabling a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution allowing to the UN to facilitate the withdrawal of the Army of Conquest from Aleppo. Unfortunately three of the UNSC's permanent members - the US, France and the UK - vetoed this resolution on October 8th (8/10/16).

Unperturbed by the US, the UK and France's obstructionism on Monday (17/10/16) Syria and Russia unilaterally declared a humanitarian pause to allow the Army of Conquest to withdraw from east Aleppo City. The Army of Conquest refused.

However yesterday (20/10/16) Syria and Russia extended the humanitarian pause to allow civilians to be evacuated from occupied east Aleppo. The Army of Conquest did not take kindly to this plan launching constant artillery strikes against the three longstanding humanitarian corridors preventing any of their civilian hostages from leaving east Aleppo and wounding three Russian military officers who were coordinating the evacuation in the process.

The northern of these humanitarian corridors which were established in June 2016 runs through the Bustan al-Pasha neighbourhood which sits directly east of the Shiekh Maqsood neighbourhood.

As a result I can't help but think that the Turkish airstrikes on the Shiekh Maqsood neighbourhood that morning were intended to violate the humanitarian pause and give the Army of Conquest an excuse to prevent their hostages escaping. The hope obviously being that as has happened so many times before Turkey's aggression would simply be ignored and everything would be blamed on Russia.

Last night the UN General Assembly (UNGA) held a special session on Aleppo at the request of Canada. At that meeting de Mistura again equated the salvation of the city with it's continued occupation by the Al Qaeda-led Army of Conquest. Nobody mentioned the Army of Conquest's shelling of the humanitarian corridors nor Turkey's airstrikes against civilian areas.

Much as it pains me to say at around 15:30 on 21/10/16 (UK date) it looks as though I'm going to have to put in a Friday night shift.

Edited around 19:05 on 21/10/16 (UK date) to add;

Erdogan's continued Imperial blood-lust is also causing significant problems with the preparations for an operation to liberate Mosul.

On Monday (17/10/16) the slogan; "Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk: Parts of Turkey" trended globally on Twitter in the style of many other Erdogan inspired hashtags such as; #ErdoganVoiceOfTheOppressed, #MassacreInAleppo, #AleppoIsBurning and #AleppoUnderSiege have done in the past.

The following day (18/10/16) the newspaper of the Turkish Public Workers Union ran as its frontpage an Ottoman-era map showing the Iraqi cities of Mosul, Erbil and Kirkuk to be parts of Turkey.

Fortunately Erdogan's efforts to annex Mosul along with presumably Erbil and Kirkuk were dealt a significant blow on Thursday (21/10/16) when the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga launched their Tel Skuf offensive. The objective of that offensive being to establish a forward line between the town of Badush in the west and the town of Bashiqa some 30km (20 miles) to the east.

Despite being - until yesterday - on the ISIL side of the frontline Bashiqa is where Turkey has established a military base. It is from that base that Turkey has been training a militia under the control of the Sunni-Arab Nujaifi tribe.

In the days of the Ottoman Empire the Nujaifi tribe were the Lords or "Pasha" who ruled over the area around Mosul on behalf of the Ottoman Sultan. The current Turkish backed Nujaifi militia who've taken to referring to themselves as; "The Sunni Nineveh Guard/Hashd al-Watani" are not affiliated with either the Peshmerga or the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).

It was from the Bashiqa camp that Erdogan had hoped to deploy Turkish troops into preparations for an operation to liberate Mosul. The fact that the Peshmerga have been able to launch and successfully carry out the Tel Skuf offensive demonstrates that Turkish forces are not needed. Sadly though those Turkish forces have still not withdrawn from Iraq and no doubt Erdogan will continue to lobby for them to participate in any operation to liberate Mosul.

Today the Iraqi government has issued an arrest warrant for the head of the Nujaifi tribe - Atheel al-Nujaifi - on a charge of treason by way of acting as an agent of a foreign power. With al-Nujaifi repeatedly calling for a foreign power - namely Turkey - to invade and then militarily occupy northern Iraq that sounds like an entirely reasonable accusation to me.

Unfortunately also today US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter has paid a visit to Turkey. 

I personally would have cancelled this visit the moment that Turkey launched its airstrikes against civilian areas in Aleppo and its artillery strikes against civilian areas in Rajo, Jindres and Qamishili in SDF controlled areas of Syria. However Secretary Carter has not only gone ahead with his visit he has used it as an opportunity to re-affirm the US' support for Turkish forces to take part in any operation to liberate Mosul.

Fortunately it will only be a maximum of three months before Secretary Carter is replaced. Ideally by someone who hasn't sworn allegiance to ISIL.

No-one seems to be as keen on Turkish involvement in any future Mosul operation than ISIL themselves.

On Wednesday (19/10/16) ISIL launched a short-lived, surprise attack on the town of Sinjar/Shingal. Sitting around 110km (65miles) west of Mosul Highway H47 you may remember that Sinjar/Shingal is where CJTFOIR's current operation against ISIL began.

Back in August 2014 ISIL swept into the town of Sinjar massacring 5,000 of the predominately Yezidi population as they went. ISIL then proceeded to kidnap upwards of 3,500 Yezidi women and girls as sex slaves before forcing the town's remaining population to flee up Sinjar mountain.

The furious protests that the spectacle of 50,000 people being forced to die of thirst atop of Mount Sinjar generated from the White House press corp soon became so great that US President Barack Obama felt that he could no longer support ISIL - publicly at least. So he authorised US airforces to conduct strictly limited airstrikes in Iraq until such a time as he could re-package ISIL as a brand that would be acceptable to the public.

Despite Obama's pin-prick strikes it largely fell to the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) to climb Mount Sinjar and rescue the trapped civilians.

From there the YPG helped organise the local Kurdish, Yezidi and Assyrian population into a series of militias known as the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) and the Yezidi Protection Forces (HPE). In November of 2015 the YBS, the HPE and the Peshmerga swept down from Mount Sinjar to liberate the town of Sinjar from ISIL. However then finding themselves rather abandoned by CJTFOIR these forces were then unable to properly secure Sinjar and the surrounding areas.

By launching an attack on Sinjar ISIL seemed to be trying to provoke a counter-attack by the YBS and the HPE. The thinking being that due to these groups association with the SDF this would provide Erdogan with all the pre-text he would need to launch Turkish military strikes against the YBS and the HPE in order to; "Protect the local Sunni population from PKK terror!"

Also the absence of a western flank to this proposed Mosul operation has not gone unnoticed by the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) militia's that are affiliated to the ISF. In recent days they have been pressing for permission to launch an operation to liberate the town of Tal Afar which sits around 50km (30 miles) east of Sinjar and around 65km (40 miles) west of Mosul along H47 in order to cut off ISIL's escape up the Falls Road.

Due to this attack on Sinjar the PMF's case has only being strengthened. Although only around 20 of the PMF's 40 militias are Shia-Arab ISIL's thinking in launching the Sinjar attack is that such a PMF operation will give Erdogan all the pre-text he needs to deploy the Turkish military to; "Protect the local Sunni-Arab population from Shia-Arab terror!"

In a similar vein ISIL have today launched an attack on the city of Kirkuk which sits around 150km (90 miles) south-east of Mosul.

Although it fell under the protection of the Peshmerga in the summer of 2014 Kirkuk is a mixed city. The north-east is predominately Kurdish while the south-west is a mixture of Sunni-Arabs and ethnic Turkmen who are a mixture of Sunnis and Shias. However I should point out that this is not Belfast in the 1970's so prior to Erdogan opening his big mouth no-one has felt the need to build peace walls between the different communities.

By launching today's attack ISIL seem to be trying to demonstrate that the Peshmerga are not capable of protecting Kirkuk's Arab and Turkmen populations as they have been successfully doing for almost three years now. The hope being this would provide Erdogan with all the pre-text he needs to send Turkish military forces to Kirkuk to protect the Sunni-Arab and Turkmen population.

The nature of the attack on Kirkuk is actually quite common in Afghanistan. A small almost commando-style unit infiltrate an city and run around for a few hours shooting things up and generally causing chaos. They then hole up in snipers positions often in high buildings and then try and hold out for a long as possible.

Although it can be frightening for the local population from a military perspective this type of attack is at worst annoying and without any value other than the symbolic. It most certainly does not mean that ISIL are about to overrun Kirkuk.

I would think that if it continues much beyond Saturday (22/10/16) night the ISF's elite Counter Terrorism Force (CTF/Golden Division) can probably have it for breakfast. After all they have been trained by some of the best Special Operations Forces (SOF) NATO has to offer. Many of whom are in the area should the need arises.

I think it is likely that this attack has originated in the area known as the Hawija triangle which sits just south-west of Kirkuk beyond the Khurmatu Front. The ISIL fighters have probably been able to infiltrate Kirkuk either through underground tunnels or by simply slipping across the defensive line under the cover of darkness.

Sadly either way they would have needed at least some help from the local population. However I should point out assistance may not have been either ideological nor voluntary.

The attack seems to have orgininated from the Sunni-Arab/Turkmen neighbourhoods of Kirkuk and began with an attack on a Peshmerga checkpoint leading into the Kurdish districts of the city.

Therefore the intention seems to be to turn both the Peshmerga and the PMF against the Sunni-Arab and Turkmen population in the hope they will get fired up an look for revenge against the collaborators.

To further enrage the PMF the attack seems to have been focused on an oil facility that is currently under construction by an Iranian company where at least 4 Iranian nationals have been killed. A handful of the PMF militias are either directly backed by Iran or by Lebanon's Hezbollah which in turn is backed by Iran.

So ISIL's thinking in launching this attack against Kirkurk is to trigger a backlash that will give Erdogan all the excuse he needs to deploy the Turkish military to; "Protect the local Sunni-Arab and Turkmen population from Shia-Arab/Kurdish Terror!"

Amid all this chaos there has been some good news. Yesterday (20/10/16) I wrote about the combined ISF/Peshmerga push to advance from the Kalak Front to liberate the predominately Assyrian Christian town of Bartella which sits around 8km (5 miles) east of Mosul along the H2 Highway.

Pretty much as I was writing that the ISF/Peshmerga were writing a press statement confirming that they had liberated Bartella. This leaves them with just the town of Bazwaia to liberate before they are effectively at the gates of Mosul and in a position to begin planning an operation to liberate the city itself.

Sadly all this progress does come at a cost.

Although neither the ISF nor the Peshmerga publish casualty lists which ISIL would use for propaganda purposes the strong rumour I've heard is that in the four days up to yesterday (21/10/16) 45 Peshmerga have sacrificed their lives to defeat ISIL while a further 55 have been seriously wounded. When it comes to walking wounded the Peshmerga in particular have a fierce reputation for just carrying on fighting until they drop dead.

Obviously death and injury are to be expected from any war or battle. However I think this is something that I would like to keep at least a vague eye on. After all it would be nice if both the ISF and the Peshmerga had some soldiers left alive at the end on the battle. Otherwise it kind of looks like they've lost.

Also one US serviceman - believed SOF operator - gave their life yesterday as part of the operation on the Tel Skuf front.

 21:20 on 21/10/16 (UK date).

*"Safe-Zone" is a technical term carrying with it legal implications for whomever declares it.