Operation Featherweight: Month 31, Week 2, Day 3.

On Tuesday January 24th 2017 (24/1/17) the eastern half of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul was liberated from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Since the summer of 2014 Mosul had served as ISIL's de facto capital in Iraq.

This came just eight days after ISIL also lost control of some 3,200kmsq (1,920milesq) to the north and west of Raqqa. ISIL's de facto capital in Syria. 

For any group or entity claiming to be a nation state this rapid loss of territory would be highly embarrassing. That is particularly true of ISIL because rather like Nazi Germany their nihilistic ideology is defined by their need to constantly expand and constantly destroy. In fact the group's motto is "Maintain and Expand." 

So in order to distract their supporters from this vast loss and contraction ISIL have responded by unleashing another orgy of violence.

On December 11th 2016 (11/12/16) ISIL launched an operation to capture the city of Palmyra which sits in central Syria roughly 220km (130 miles) south of Raqqa and 300km (180 miles) west of Syria's border with Iraq. 

Initially this was done in an effort to assist ISIL's allies the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) who at the time were being ousted from the eastern half of Aleppo City. This attempt to split the forces of Syria and their Russian backers failed with Aleppo City being fully liberated on December 12th 2016 (12/12/16). However ISIL did succeed in capturing Palmyra.

On January 19th 2017 (19/1/17) ISIL responded to its mounting losses in both Syria and Iraq by publicly murdering 12 people - a mix of Syrian soldiers and anti-Syrian government fighters that ISIL consider too moderate - within Palmyra's ancient amphitheatre. On January 20th 2017 (20/1/17) ISIL destroyed part of the amphitheatre itself in an attempt to erase any remnant of any ideology but their own from the earth.

On January 17th 2017 (17/1/17) ISIL launched a fresh offensive against the city of Deir-ez-Zour.

Deir-ez-Zour has always been one of Syria's more complex locations. It sits within the Euphrates River basin some 150km (90 miles) south-west of Raqqa and 160km (95miles) north-west of Syria's border with Iraq. As such it is firmly within ISIL's heartlands and the oil from the Deir-ez-Zour oilfields has been a major source of revenue for ISIL via their Turkish smuggling operation.

However despite the fact that they control all of the territory surrounding the city ISIL have never been able to fully occupy the city itself. Since roughly January 2016 ISIL have controlled a quarter of the city - the Hamidiyah neighbourhood - up to the H4 Highway road as it runs through the city. 

The Syrian government has maintained control of the remaining three quarters of the city. Crucially the Syrian government have also maintained control of both Deir-ez-Zour airport and the H4 road running between the airport and the sections of the city under Syrian control. This has allowed the Syrian government to continue to supply both the soldiers and civilians trapped in the city. 

You may remember that on September 16th 2016 (16/9/16) aircraft from the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - conducted airstrikes against Syrian positions close to Deir-ez-Zour. This allowed ISIL to briefly seize control of a strategic hill overlooking the airport. It also prompted Denmark to withdraw from CJTFOIR in protest against then US President Barack Obama's leadership.

On January 17th (17/1/17) ISIL pushed out of the Hamidiyah neighbourhood to seize control to the sprawling Deir-ez-Zour graveyard. In the process they seized control of the H4 road to the airport. This cut the Syrian forces off from re-supply raising a very real concern that the entire city would soon be overrun by ISIL. 

It also stopped the UN's World Food Program (WFP) from using the airport to deliver vital food aid to the city's population of around 157,000 civilians. However with ISIL fighters closing in on them those civilians are probably more worried about being raped and murdered than having time to starve to death.

I have to say that from a strategic perspective ISIL's attempts to capture Deir-ez-Zour city have baffled me. 

With poor diplomatic relations going back some 40 years even if the US does repair its relationship with Russia it is extremely unlikely that CJTFOIR will be directly  helping Syria any time soon. If CJTFOIR does start to back the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to defeat ISIL Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan will point to the failure to attack the Syrian government forces as evidence of SDF collaboration in an effort to rally support for ISIL.

So I would have thought that ISIL would want to keep the Syrian government in control of Deir-ez-Zour city as a sort of protection against CJTFOIR and the SDF. However ISIL have always been so strategically incompetent the question is really why the hell they still exist nearly two and half years into this war.

The situation in the rest of Syria has been dominated by the talks held in Astana, Kazakhstan on January 23rd (23/1/17) and January 24th (24/1/17). Those talks themselves have been dominated by the situation in and around Wadi Barada and Ayn al-Fijeh.

Both Wadi Barada and Ayn al-Fijeh sit around 10km (6 miles) north-west of the Syrian capital Damascus. They provide the majority of Damascus' water supply. 

On December 22nd 2016 (22/12/16) the Army of Conquest which occupies the area poisoned the water supply and blew up the pumping station cutting off the water supply to Damascus' some 1.7 million civilian residents. This prompted fierce fighting despite the December 29th ceasefire (29/12/16) as Syrian forces battled to restore the water supply.

On January 13th 2017 (13/1/17) a deal was struck that would see the Army of Conquest surrender the area in return for safe-passage to the area surrounding Idlib City which has been designated; "The Sudetenland." 

On January 15th (15/1/17) gunmen from the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham) assassinated a retired Brigadier General and local resident who was brokering the deal. 

Ahrar al-Sham's intention was to cause the deal to collapse and they succeeded with fighting resuming. Ahrar al-Sham then used the renewed fighting which they had caused as an excuse to boycott the Astana talks.

The main outcome of the Astana talks is that Russia, Turkey and Iran have agreed a mechanism to monitor the December 29th ceasefire going forward. However in practical terms this really only means that the three have agreed to continue arguing over what and what doesn't constitute a ceasefire violation with Russia acting as the final arbiter. 

At 13:05 on 30/1/17 (UK date) I've much more to add. But first coffee.

Edited at around 15:20 on 30/1/17 (UK date) to add; 

Delegates at the Astana talks also pledged to seperate ISIL and The Base/Al Qaeda affiliate The Support Front/Jabhat al-Nusra (ANF) from what were termed armed opposition groups. To this end the Free Syrian Army (FSA) announced that they would now fight against their Support Front.

The problem with this is that the Free Syrian Army doesn't exist and has never really existed. As with the White Helmets who insist on calling themselves "Syrian Civil Defence" the FSA is really a propaganda term invented by foreign intelligence agencies. The purpose is to delegitimize the Syrian state in the hope of encouraging people to defect to this parallel state the foreign powers have created. Thus bringing down the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad.

The hope was that this would be somewhat similar to what happened in Egypt back in 2011 and more recently in the Gambia. However because unlike the situation in those places the attempts to overthrow the Syrian government have been false it has failed.

In practical terms the FSA is nothing more than a catch all term for a vast - at last count around 7000 - disparate armed groups. These are groups are very small in size with the largest only being made up of around 150 fighters which the US military would consider company strength.

Some of these groups are made up of criminal gangs like MS-13 or the Steel City Gang in the US. Others are made up of extended families who in Arab societies tend to live together. Others are made up of local residents in a specific geographic area who are not related to each other. There is a vast array of political and religious ideology amongst these groups with some fighting as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition and others fighting as part of the Army of Conquest coalition.

What holds the Army of Conquest coalition together are its three largest groups; The Support Front, Ahrar al-Sham and the United Turkmen Army (UTA). Sometimes referred to as the; "Syrian Turkmen Brigades" the UTA are Turkish irregular troops largely raised from the Grey Wolves - the paramilitary wing on the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). However the MHP have now largely been absorbed by the Justice & Development Party (AKP).

The large Islamist groups within the Army of Conquest control the smaller groups in a number of ways. Part of it is ideological with some groups choosing to fight alongside Al Qaeda and Ahrar al-Sham because they share the same violent Islamist ideology. Bribery also plays a large part with the large Islamist groups offering food, money, weapons and other equipment to smaller groups to fight alongside them.

The main instrument of control the Islamist groups use though is violence. In short if one of the groups in an area controlled by the Army of Conquest refuse to join them Al Qaeda, Ahrar al-Sham or the UTA will simply kill them.

This has been a particular problem in the Sudetenland. On Tuesday January 24th (24/1/17) Al Qaeda launched an assault against the Army of Jihadist Fighters/Jaish al-Mujahideen which is ongoing. To give you an idea of how slanted the term; "moderate" has become in talking about Syria the Army of Jihadist Fighters are apparently not considered an Islamist Jihadi group.

Therefore my main concern behind Ahrar al-Sham urging the smaller groups to fight Al Qaeda is that they are trying to get their ally to wipe them out. That will leave Ahrar al-Sham in sole control of areas like Wadi Barada and Ayn al-Fijeh removing the possibility of a negotiated Army of Conquest withdrawal from the area.

It is also likely to be a political ruse. This is something that we've become familiar with particularly in the area of Syria's border with Turkey known as; "Garvaghy Road" throughout 2015. ISIL, Al Qaeda, Ahrar al-Sham and the UTA would regularly cycle control of towns like Marea and Cobanbey between themselves depending on which brand-name would best suit Erdogan's political objectives at the time.

Following the Astana talks events on the ground have dramatically picked up in pace.

Immediately following the Astana talks on January 24th (24/1/17) Russia helicoptered close to a hundred Syrian troops into Deir-ez-Zour. These reinforcements were almost immediately able to force ISIL from the cemetery area. They also re-established loose control over the H4 Highway re-opening the route to the airport.

By Saturday (28/1/17) Syrian forces were able to militarily defeat Ahrar al-Sham at Wadi Barada and Ayn al-Fijeh without Russian assistance. With Ahrar al-Sham defeated Syrian forces entered the area and the agreement that sees the smaller groups withdraw to the Sudetenland was restored. Despite heavy snow in the area that withdrawal is currently underway.

Within the Garvaghy Road area much of the recent focus has been on the town of al-Bab. This sits between Syrian positions in Aleppo City some 25km (15 miles) to the south-west and SDF positions in Manbij some 30km (18 miles) to the north-east. 

Since the start of December 2016 Erdogan has been trying to cycle control of al-Bab between ISIL and his invasion force - both regular and irregular. Erdogan has also made it quite clear that from al-Bab he then intends to attack SDF positions at Manbij.

On Saturday (28/1/17) Syrian forces - again without Russian support - advanced from Aleppo City to within 7km (4 miles) of al-Bab. This very much raises the possibility of the pretence of a popular uprising disappearing amid a direct confrontation between Syrian and Turkish regular forces. Such a confrontation would put Russia in an extremely difficult position. After all they can hardly conduct airstrikes in support of two sides that are fighting each other.

However in response to the Syrian advance Erdogan has announced that Turkish forces will withdraw from al-Bab once ISIL have left the town. The second part of the sentence sounds very much negotiable to me.

Also on Saturday (28/1/17) US President Donald Trump held a one hour telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. At Erdogan's request the US was invited to the Astana talks. However with them taking place just three days after Trump's inauguration the US was not able to attend in person.

Amid these fast moving developments the big problem has been Britain. They of course were not invited to the Astana talks. So in protest have decided to throw themselves to the middle of the floor in a massive tantrum that they hope will force someone to take pity on them and explain what is going on.

This British effort really began with the door on one of my outbuildings being smashed in on the evening of Friday January 20th (20/1/17). As I explained at the time this was intended to encourage former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh to continue his occupation of the Presidential Palace in the hope that his supporters would come to defend him from what he would claim was a colonialist coup attempt.

Britain's thinking was the possibility of severe unrest in the Gambia would cast a long shadow over the Astana talks as we all tensely waited to see whether Jammeh would leave peacefully or a bloodbath would ensue. The tension was intended to peak on Tuesday January 24th (24/1/17) when the British Law Lords handed down their ruling in the Brexit case.

Jammeh of course stepped down peacefully in the evening of Saturday January 21st (21/1/17) removing a large part of Britain's plan. I of course would say that the Brexit element of the plan failed about an hour after the ruling was handed down. 

Despite these setbacks on Tuesday (24/1/17) morning the UK decided to press ahead by confirming a meeting between UK Prime Minister May and Erdogan in Turkey on Saturday January 28th (28/1/17). 

This would come just a day after Prime Minister May had been the first foreign leader to meet President Trump in America on Friday January 27th (27/1/17). 

That meeting had been confirmed on the day of Trump's inauguration - January 20th (20/1/17).   

At around 17:30 on 30/1/17 (UK date) I'll have to pick this up after dinner. 

Edited at around 19:35 on 30/1/17 (UK date) to try and sort out the ridiculously tiny font and add;

The centre piece of Prime Minister May's pilgrimage to Erdogan was the announcement of a GBP100million (USD125million) deal for BAE Systems to supply the Turkish airforce with next generation multi-role fighter aircraft.

On one level this sounds a strengthening of the alliance between the UK and Erdogan. However on another level it sounds like the UK warning Erdogan that he might suddenly need to replace his current fleet of fighter aircraft. Particularly if he keeps sending them to bomb anti-ISIL forces in both Syria and Iraq.

BAE Systems are of course synonymous with Saudi Arabia's current war against Yemen. There has even been talk in the British Parliament that members of the British Military whom BAE Systems have seconded to advise Saudi Arabia in that war could be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

The Astana talks are of course not the only diplomatic process focused on Syria. There is also the UN sponsored process which are known as the; "Geneva Process." 

The Geneva process focuses on what is termed the; "High Negotiations Committee (HNC)." The HNC has been formed entirely by Saudi Arabia. Rather to prove the point both the HNC's President and spokesman are named "Riyad." As in the capital of Saudi Arabia. 

Despite having been selected by the Saudis to speak on behalf of the Syrian people the HNC don't appear to have spoken to any of the Syrian people. As a result the Astana process is focused less on the HNC and more on armed groups that are actually active within Syria. Quite how Saudi Arabia feels about that is obviously an interesting topic.

At around the time of OPEC's December 2016 meeting BAE Systems announced that it will no longer be supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in its war against Yemen. Officially this is due to humanitarian concerns. Unofficially it is due to growing concerns that Saudi Arabia will no longer be able to pay for those weapons.

Saudi Arabia's economic fortunes seem to have been of great interest to Erdogan of late. 

For example there was the December 19th 2016 (19/12/16) assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey. In carrying out this assassination Erdogan's personal police body guard - Mevlut Altintas - seemed to very closely resemble "Carlos the Jackal" as portrayed by Edgar Ramirez in the 2010 movie "Carlos." Carlos the Jackal's probably most famous attack was on the December 1975 OPEC meeting.

Then of course there was the January 1st 2017 (1/1/17) attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul. With 7 Saudis amongst the dead this built a bridge of communication between Erdogan and Saudi Arabia just as Saudi Arabia was being forced to convert from the Muslim Hijri calendar to the Gregorian calender as part of their austerity program.

Due to Erdogan's apparent desire to turn Turkey into a North Korea style pariah state the economic outlook for the nation is not good. In fact just on Friday (27/1/16) it had its debt rating cut to junk status. That would suggest the part of European Union (EU) membership that Erdogan is most keen on is a Greek-style bailout.

That poses of the obvious question of how Erdogan intends to settle what for him is a TRY473million bill with BAE Systems.

So in short by visiting Erdogan the UK was, in its usual inept style, trying to shake him down to find out what happened in Astana.

It turns out that the parties to the Astana talks did not respond to Britain's tantrum by taking pity on it. Instead they smacked it on the bum.

As expected in response to Britain's attempts to muscle in Russia dug its heels in. 

There was a meeting of the Geneva process which Britain is a party to scheduled for February 2nd (2/2/17). However Russia has now cancelled this. The UN has yet to accept that the meeting has been cancelled but no-one from the Astana process will be attending.

Russia then proceeded to do a victory lap around the UK.

On Friday (27/1/17) evening - hours before Prime Minister May's visit - the US actress and prospective Russian citizen Lindsay Lohan met with Erdogan and the notorious Bana al-Abed.

You may remember that Bana al-Abed is the 7 year old girl whose mother and father fight with Al Qaeda first in Aleppo City and now in the Sudetenland. As part of that war effort they frequently post on social media in their daughter's name. Curiously many in the western media have become enamoured with this Al Qaeda propaganda effort rather than calling it out as an undeniable war crime.

2016 was a year of many political surprises. However possibly the most surprising of all was Lindsay Lohan giving a running Twitter commentary on the results of Britain's June 23rd (23/6/16) Brexit referendum. This was so surprising because Lindsay Lohan is now generally considered to be a massive screw up.

Like many massive screw ups before her Lindsay Lohan has now decided to embrace Islam. Her thinking being that it will cure her of her rampant alcohol and drug abuse and the deep psychological problems that cause them. In that sense Lindsay Lohan is your typical ISIL fighter.

Lindsay Lohan seems particularly similar to Sally Jones the rather famous British ISIL fighter.

Sally Jones used to be married to Junaid Hussein until he came down with a nasty case of Hellfire. Together they have been extremely active in trying to recruit particularly English speakers to join and carry out terror attacks for ISIL.

It's widely believed that it was the couple's young son who appeared in a August 2016 ISIL video beheading Kurdish hostages. Entitled "The Nations Are Uniting Against You" this video was released in celebration of Erdogan's invasion of Garvaghy Road in support of ISIL.

Sally Jones even copied the promotional shots that Lindsay Lohan did for the 2010 movie "Machete" in which she posed in a Christian Nun's habit whilst wielding a gun.

It certainly seems then that Russia was questioning Britain's motives in sending Prime Minister May to meet with Erdogan. The best bit is that they got Erdogan to pose for the photo by telling him that it was support for his "Bigger Than Five" campaign to grant Turkey a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC).

Also on Saturday President Trump's executive order limiting immigration went into effect. I think this probably warrants a post of its own.

However I should make clear that it is not a Muslim ban. It notably excludes Egypt which is the most populous Arab Muslim nation and Indonesia which is the most populous Muslim nation. 

Instead it is a ban on travel from 7 nations. With the exception of Iran all of these nations are considered active warzones that US Citizens are strongly advised against travelling to.

It is also temporary being limited to 90 days. This is 90 days less than the similar travel ban that then President Obama imposed in 2011. The purpose of the ban is to provide time for the US to review and fix their immigration security screening for all nations - not just the 7 that the ban applies to.

What I expect will happen is that in 90 days for existing visa and greencard holders everything will revert to just how it was. However for reasons you're unlikely to see in future people like the San Bernardino gunwoman Tashfeen Malik won't be granted entry to the US in order to carry out their attacks.

On the indefinite ban on Syrian refugees this was put into place at the same time that President Trump also issued an executive order instructing the US military to draw up a new strategy to fighting and defeating ISIL.

The central part of this new strategy looks likely to be empowering the Kurdish-led SDF to establish legally defined safe-havens within Syria. This will remove the need for Syrians to become refugees and will strike back hard against ISIL's efforts to ethnically cleanse what they consider to be the Levant region.

I must say that something has gone very wrong with western values if we now consider refugees to be a badge of pride rather than a stain on all our humanity. It's as if we've got to thinking that the Nazi Holocaust is somehow something to aspire to.

At around 20:55 on 30/1/17 (UK date) I will proof read this later and pick it up tomorrow.

22:55 on 30/1/17 (UK date). 

Edited at around 12:20 on 31/1/17 (UK date) to add;

Erdogan has of course long opposed the creation of first a People's Protection Units (YPG) and then SDF controlled safe-zone for refugees within Syria. 

As with every other time Erdogan doesn't get his way he has repeatedly responded by threating to flood the world and particularly Europe with terrorists disguised as refugees. Trump's executive orders on immigration certainly give Erdogan something to think about.

In fact if the Gambia was intended to cast a long shadow over the Astana talks with Trump's executive orders it must have felt as if the sky was falling in during Prime Minister May's visit to Turkey.

Shortly after Prime Minister May had left Turkey airlines flying from the UK were informed that the executive orders also applied to UK dual nationals from the 7 nations. That of course sent the message that Brits do not have an automatic right to visit the US and friendship is a two-way street.

However the list did not apply to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan's 188 million Muslims. Nor did it apply to the People's Republic of Bangladesh's 145 million Muslims. It didn't even apply to the Federal Republic of Nigeria's 77 million Muslims despite Nigeria arguably being as much of a warzone as Somalia or Sudan.

From a British perspective that was extremely fortunate. After all it is those countries that provide the majority of Britain's Muslim dual nationals. There were though a couple of high profile Brits who were caught up in the confusion.

For example there was Mo Farah - the Somali born Olympian. You may remember that Mo Farah was also heavily involved the doping scandal surrounding Nike's Oregon, US training facility. 

Essentially coaches at the Nike facility were pumping athletes full of performance enhancing drugs. Adding to the corruption the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) were handing out blanket exemptions permitting Nike trained athletes to cheat at events such as the Olympics. Farah himself has admitted to taking steriods as part of the Nike doping scandal.

Also heavily involved in the Nike doping scandal was British Parliamentarian Sebastian Lord Coe. As a brand Ambassador for Nike Lord Coe abused his poisition as International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) President to award the 2021 World Athletics Championships to Nike's Oregon facility by disregarding the usual bidding process.

Lord Coe also used his role as IAAF President to attempt to ban Russia from the 2016 Summer Olympics. You remember - the ones that were spoilt by Erdogan's invasion of Syria.

Also caught up in the confusion was British Conservative MP for Stratford-Upon-Avon Nadhim Zahawi. 

Nadim Zahawi is extremely well known amongst those involved in the fight against ISIL and associated groups. An Iraqi Kurd by birth he has made frequent visits to the frontlines around Mosul. Particularly in the heady early days of the summer of 2014 he is pretty much personally responsible for all the military support that the UK has provided to the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga.

As such Nadhim Zahawi is likely to find it a lot easier to pass security checks to enter the US then many other members of the UK Parlimanent and particularly his Conservative Party.

For example Andrew Mitchell is neither a Muslim nor a dual national. However if he plans to travel to the US he is going to have a tough time explaining why he has provided material support to Al Qaeda and ISIL through the Parliamentary 'Friends' of Syria group.

Also during her visit to Turkey Prime Minister May announced that the UK share's Erdogan's concerns about Kurds. If that is the case then the UK is certainly in no position to argue that Nadhim Zahawi doesn't represent such a severe terror threat that he must be denied entry to the US.

Sunday (29/1/17) was spent with the UK Foreign Office in urgent discussion with their counterparts at the US State Department. After an agreement was reached that a very serious mistake had been made it turned out that the ban doesn't apply to UK dual nationals after all. Apparently a US official had just misread the situation.

In response to the realisation that they will have to choose between a special relationship with the US and a special relationship with ISIL the likes of Andrew Mitchell have thrown another little tantrum, starting a petition calling for Trump's right to visit the UK to revoked in retaliation. 

13:25 on 31/1/17 (UK date).