Operation Featherweight: Month 29, Week 2, Day 1.

On November 3rd (3/11/16) my Internet connection was shut down cutting off my communications for more than a week. This was one of the most critical weeks so far in the current war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

In my previous post I caught up on events in the operation to liberate from ISIL the city of Mosul in northern Iraq. In this post I will attempt to take an overview of events in northern Syria. Here there are really three key areas.

The first of these is the roughly 12,000kmsq (7.200 milesq) buffer-zone that has been established by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) in north-eastern Syria.

I hesitate to describe this area as a "Safe-Haven" because although something of a linguistic redundancy the term; "Safe-Haven" is a specified one under international law which places a number of legal obligations on the people who declare it. For example the case of the Dutch military's failure to protect civilians in a Safe-Haven in Srebrenica, Bosnia in 1995 is still going through the Courts.

As essentially a lightly armed guerrilla force I know that the SDF lack the resources to accept the legal liabilities that come from designating a Safe-Haven.

However if the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - were to fully recognise the SDF and properly support them then this buffer-zone could quite easily become the Safe-Haven that many CJTFOIR members - particularly Turkey - have long demanded be established in Syria.

The western boundary of the SDF's buffer-zone is the Euphrates River while the eastern boundary is Syria's border with Iraq 480km (290 miles) away. The southern boundary of this buffer-zone is more jagged and therefore harder to define. However two key locations that generally mark the southern boundary are the city of Hasakah and the town of Ayn Issa.

Hasakah sits around 80km (50 miles) west of Syria's border with Iraq and around 90km (55 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey. Ayn Issa sits around 60km (35miles) east of the Euphrates and around 50km (30 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey. Crucially Ayn Issa also sits around 70km (40 miles) north of Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital.

Sitting directly to the west of the SDF's buffer-zone you have the second key area which is known either as; "Erdogan's Pocket" or "Garvaghy Road." This stretches roughly 100km (60 miles) from the Euphrates in the east to the Syrian town of Azaz in the west. Azaz sits almost directly south of the Turkish border town of Kilis.

The Garvaghy Road is ISIL's main supply route with the outside world. ISIL oil flows up the road into Turkish refineries. In return fighters, weapons and other equipment flow down the road from Turkey either to Raqqa or Aleppo City which sits roughly 60km (35 miles) south of Azaz.

To the west of Azaz you have a second area under SDF control. With the city of Afrin at its heart this is known as; "The Afrin Canton." It is bordered by Turkey to the north and west and it's rough southern boundary is the line between the western border with Turkey and the town of Anadan roughly 15km (9 miles) north-west of Aleppo City.

On December 30th 2015 (30/12/15) the SDF were able to liberate the Tishrin Dam across the Euphrates from ISIL. On May 31st 2016 (31/5/16) the SDF were able to liberate the town of Manbij from ISIL. Manbij sits roughly 30km (18 miles) south-west of the Tishrin Dam and 45km (27 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey on the western bank of the Euphrates.

As such the liberation of Manbij should have been the first step in the SDF sealing Garvaghy Road cutting ISIL's supply-lines with Turkey and extending the buffer-zone/Safe-Haven across all of the north of Syria.

Depending on progress in Iraq the SDF would then be in a position to start planning an operation to force ISIL from Raqqa and the Euphrates basin thus totally defeating the group. The SDF would then be in a position to negotiate a political settlement with the Syrian government finally ending this war which is currently well into its sixth year.

However on August 25th (25/8/16) Turkey formally invaded Garvaghy Road using a mixture of both regular and irregular troops. Their first objective was the border town of Jarablus which sits on the western bank of the Euphrates around 45km (27 miles) north of Manbij.

With ISIL simply being absorbed into the Turkish irregular forces Turkey was able to take control of Jarablus in less than 24 hours. The combined Turkish/ISIL forces then proceeded to advance south to attack SDF forces - including French and American Special Operations Forces (SOF) - in Manbij.

Quite why CJTFOIR gave Turkey permission to carry out this wholly illegal invasion of Syria in support of ISIL in the first place remains a complete mystery to me. However that permission was given on the understanding that Turkey would fully withdraw it's occupation force by September 6th (6/9/16).

Unfortunately when September 6th came US President Obama - as the Commander-in-Chief of CJTFOIR - either lost his nerve or his mind.

Rather than holding Turkey to withdrawing it's invasion force by the agreed date CJTFOIR instead settled for trying to nudge the Turkish forces westward away from Manbij. First towards the border town of al-Rai some 65km (40 miles) west of Jarablus and then the town of Dabiq which sits around 20km (12 miles) south-west of al-Rai.

On October 16th (16/10/16) ISIL cycled control of Dabiq to Turkish forces in the same way the two forces had cycled control of Jarablus and al-Rai between themselves. Although of limited strategic value the town of Dabiq is of great symbolic importance.

It was in the August 1516 Battle of Dabiq Meadow that the Ottoman Empire - the last Islamist Caliphate - defeated the Mamluk Empire. With the Mamluk Empire being based in Egypt this allowed the Ottoman Empire to establish itself across the entire Middle East, North Africa (MENA) where it remained until its fall in the 1920's. For this reason ISIL have long celebrated Dabiq as the scene of the apocalyptic final battle between them as the true believers and absolutely everybody else.

The following day on October 17th (17/10/16) the long trailed Mosul operation formally began. With the world's attention distracted by that Turkish forces wasted no time in launching attacks against SDF positions within the Afrin Canton. These began with strikes against villages just outside of Azaz.

However by October 20th (20/10/16) Turkish operations had expanded to include strikes on Rajo and Jindres which are deep inside the Afrin Canton and the city of Qamishli. The city of Qamishli is so deep within the buffer-zone it is closer to the border with Iraq some 70km (40 miles) to the east than the Euphrates some 175km (105 miles) to the west.

On October 20th (20/10/16) Turkey also launched one-off airstrikes against the Sheikh Maqsood neighbourhood within Aleppo City which is also under SDF control.

On October 22nd (22/10/16) Turkey deployed further tanks and SOF's south of Dabiq. This was done specifically to prevent the SDF from liberating the town of Marea from ISIL.

Matters came to a head on October 25th (25/10/16) when Turkish forces launched a Chemical Weapons attack on SDF forces just outside Marea.

At roughly the same time the Syrian government who are not only fighting the SDF, ISIL but also the Turkish backed Army of Conquest coalition conducted airstrikes against the Turkish invasion forces around Dabiq. Four Turkish regular army fighters were killed in these strikes. In an effort to portray the SDF as allied with the Syrian government Turkey responded by intensifying its airstrikes against the SDF.

On October 29th (29/10/16) Syria turned on its air defence systems which now include the advanced Russian S-400 system. This meant that Turkish pilots operating over Syria would receive a cockpit warning that Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM) had locked on to them and were preparing to shoot them down.

If such as shooting-down were to take place it would completely shatter the illusion of there being a popular uprising against the Syrian government. It would also become impossible to continue to pretend that this was a proxy-war. Instead it would quite clearly become an all out war between Turkey as a nation state acting as an unlawful aggressor and Syria as a nation state backed by nuclear armed Russia.

Needless to say on October 29th (29/10/16) Turkish aircraft stopped operating over Syria.

At around 16:55 on 28/11/16 (UK date) I'm going to have a cup of coffee and order my thoughts.

Edited at around 17:50 on 28/11/16 (UK date) to add;

By November 6th (6/11/16) Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan had clearly decided that the world would be distracted by the Mosul operation and the US Presidential election/transition. So the Turkish invasion and occupation force launched an operation to absorb ISIL forces in al-Bab.

Al-Bab is one the key strategic nodes within Garvaghy Road. It sits roughly 45km (27 miles) north-east of Aleppo City and roughly 50km (30 miles) south-west of Manbij. Crucially it sits on the junction between the H4 road running between Raqqa and Turkey and the H212 Road/M4 Motorway running between Aleppo City and the Euphrates. In short control of al-Bab renders control of Manbij strategically redundant.

The first stage of Turkey's al-Bab operation involved attacking SDF positions absolutely nowhere near al-Bab.

On November 7th (7/11/16) Turkish irregular forces launched twin attacks against the SDF controlled buffer-zone.

Occurring simultaneously one attack was directed against the village of Doda between the city of Qamishli and the town of Amude some 140km (85 miles) west of the Syria/Iraq border. The other attack was directed on villages between Kobane and Tel Abyad some 70km (42 miles) east of the Euphrates. Both attacks employed suicide bombers and lightly armed ground forces and were launched from within Turkey.

Both attacks were quickly repelled. They were though accompanied by Turkish shelling of SDF positions close to Qamishli, in the Sheikh Maqsood district of Aleppo City and the Afrin Canton. That shelling has been continuous.

On November 13th (13/11/16) the Turkish air force resumed its operations over Syria. Specifically they conducted airstrikes targeting civilian Internally Displaced People (IDP's) - essentially refugees - who were fleeing from Aleppo City to the safety of the Afrin Canton.

The Turkish air force then again suspended operations over Syria. They resumed them on November 20th (20/11/16) with strikes in the vicinity of Manbij. Specifically these strikes were against the Manbij Military Council (MMC) - the division of the SDF tasked with protecting Manbij.

On November 22nd (22/11/16) the MMC and the Turkish forces began engaging each other on the ground. Those clashes are continuing amid Turkish airstrikes.

With Turkish forces seeming to disregard Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity on November 24th (24/11/16) the Syrian government decided to remind Turkey that it's air defences are still active. This took the form of conducting a series of air strikes against Turkish regular forces close to Manbij killing four. As with the similar strikes close to Dabiq on October 22nd (22/10/16) Turkey responded by intensifying its attacks on the SDF.

With Turkish and Syrian regular forces once again engaged in direct combat the situation has once again become extremely tense. My current understanding is that in response to Thursday's (24/11/16) airstrikes the Turkish air force is flying continuous missions over Syria in order to protect its troops from further airstrikes. They have also deployed Rapier-type mobile air defence systems to al-Rai.

Therefore we could well be on the verge of discovering if Turkey shoots down a Syrian aircraft Russia will back Syria by nuking Turkey or if Syria shoots down a Turkish aircraft NATO will respond by formally invading Syria.

On Friday (25/11/16) night there was a degree of panic amongst the Turkish population when Turkish jets broke the sound-barrier unleashing a sonic boom over the border city of Gaziantep. Last night (27/11/16) there was a degree of amusement amongst the Turkish population when strange Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO's) that were likely ballistic missiles being tested suddenly appeared in the skies over the Turkish city of Istanbul.

One of the main things giving Erdogan confidence that NATO will give him its full support in any potential war with Syria and Russia is the operation the US has forced the SDF to undertake against Raqqa. It should come as little surprise that this operation also began on November 6th (6/11/16).

This is simply a suicide mission for the SDF. An operation to liberate Raqqa from ISIL be at least as complex as the operation to liberate Mosul. In talking about the Mosul operation I recently spoke about how an Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) convoy containing an embedded CNN journalist saw 28 of it's 35 Humvee and MRAP armoured vehicles rapidly destroyed in a series of ISIL ambushes. As a lightly armed guerrilla force the SDF don't even have Humvees and MRAP's to begin with.

Fortunately as with the Mosul operation the first stage of the SDF's Raqqa operation has not been to attack the city itself. Instead it has been to advance across the roughly 70km (40 miles) south from Ayn Issa to Raqqa.

With the first phase the operation now said to be complete as of Friday (25/11/16) the SDF is currently located around 26km (15 miles) north of Raqqa. It is here that the US sustained its first battle fatality inside of Syria with the death of US Navy Special Operator  Chief Petty Officer Scott Dayton.

I have always had a suspicion that in forcing the SDF to undertake the Raqqa operation the US has actively been trying to get them killed in order to please Erdogan.

However it is also possible that the US forced the SDF to undertake the Raqqa operation as a panicked, back of a cigarette packet response to the Mosul operation. Central to the Mosul operation has been the deal negotiated by Erdogan between the US and ISIL that the area to the west of Mosul - the Falls Road - will be left open to allow ISIL fighters to escape back to Raqqa.

At what I gather was an extremely heated NATO meeting on October 26th (26/10/16) the European nations pointed out to America that if ISIL fighters can flee from Mosul to Raqqa then they can also flee from Raqqa to Europe. Therefore it's possible the Raqqa operation was made up on the hoof to assuage those concerns.

Fortunately the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) element of the ISF secured the western side of Mosul on November 16th (16/11/16) sealing the Falls Road. Thus removing the need for the Raqqa operation.

So we now get to discover whether the US was merely panicking or whether it is actively trying to destroy the SDF.

19:15 on 28/11/16 (UK date).