Operation Featherweight: Month 31, Week 1, Day 4.

It turns out it has been a full week since my last update on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups.

In that time there have been numerous developments within Syria. The effort to liberate the eastern coast - the left bank - of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul also seems to have progressed from a combat phase to a consolidation phase.

Unfortunately I have not been free to comment on those developments due to multi-party talks on the situation in Syria being held in Astana, Kazakhstan both yesterday (23/1/17) and today (24/1/17).

As it is currently around 20:15 in the evening and I've just got back from the pub a full update will have to wait until tomorrow. However I feel I do need to comment on Britain's role in the Astana talks.

Those talks are of course a follow up to talks that were originally scheduled to take place on December 27th 2016 (27/1/16).

Although they were forced forward to December 20th 2016 (20/1/16) the original plan was that they would coincide with my Christmas visit to see my lesbian mothers and the associated miscreants that make up my family. The hope being that the complexity of my domestic situation would exert pressure on all parties during the talks.

I think it is fair to say that Britain has been extremely unhappy that while I would be a party to the December 27th talks they would be excluded. So for this round of Astana talks Britain has gone to great lengths to try and muscle in on proceedings.

Rather appropriately this began with events between 19:00 and 19:25 (GMT) last Friday (20/1/17) when persons unknown smashed in a door on one of the outbuildings in my home.

This was intended to send the message that Britain's foreign intelligence service - MI6 - was trying to smash down the door of the Presidential Palace in the Gambian capital Banjul to evict Yahya Jammeh who was squatting there.

The hope being that this would provoke Jammah's supporters to the streets in an attempt to resist what he would call a colonialist coup. This would lead to a very tense three days while we waited to find out if Jammeh would stand and fight or leave as he'd agreed on January 23rd (23/1/17) - the first day of the Astana talks.

This pressure would peak today with the UK Law Lords releasing their judgement in the Brexit case. Although one of my mothers reads this type of Court ruling for fun for most people it is quite a lot to trawl through. Particularly when it's written in your second, third or possibly even fourth language.

Combining the two issues there is currently some debate within the UK Establishment over whether to use me in the Brexit negotiations in the same way that it attempted to use me in the Climate Change negotiations and Russia is attempting to use me in the Astana negotiations. You may have even got the impression that the Law Lords insisted on an Act of Parliament rather than a much simpler binding motion in an effort to delay proceedings until the ISIL situation is resolved.

Obviously I can't really comment on the Establishment's plans to use me in the Brexit negotiations. After all if you were asked if you wanted to commit yourself to another two years of robberies, shootings, hospitalisations, arrests and Court appearances how would you answer?

However I must say that Britain's approach to the Astana talks has been spectacularly unwise.

You only need to look at the December 25th 2016 (25/1/16) crash of RA-85572 to see that these Russian-led negotiations are borne out of frustration.

Certainly since 2015 western nations have been playing this rather cute game where in public they give these great rabble rousing speeches where they condemn Russian Aggression. Meanwhile in private they breath a sigh of relief that Russia has had the courage to do what needs to be done.

After all the leader of the military council representing the 'moderate rebels' in Astana belongs to a group that happily engages in genocide and has executed members of ISIL for being too moderate in their pursuit of genocide.

Britain approaching Russia will such hostility only seems likely to increase their frustration. This seems likely to manifest itself in Russia pushing ahead even harder leaving the UK with even less of a say save for picking up the bill for a massively increased terror threat.

24/1/17 (UK date).