Authorities across the globe are appealing for the public's help in locating a 54 year old, light skinned African-American male who has been missing for several days.
They are particularly worried about the safety of the individual who responds to the name "Barack Obama" because in recent years he has been suffering from the grand delusion that he is President of the United States.
There are also concerns that his mental fragility may have been exploited by religious extremists causing him to become radicalised.
Or to put it another way;
On October 31st (31/10/15) Russian flight 7K9268 crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula killing all 224 civilians on board. Those familiar with these type of investigations knew that if the crash had been caused by a bomb placed on board it would take two to three weeks to confirm.
That confirmation arrived on Tuesday (17/11/15) and so far Russia's response has been extremely restrained.
For example they have yet to fly cruise-type missile over Turkey into Raqqa, Syria in order to make clear to Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan just what an insignificant man he truly is.
On Friday (13/11/15) 129 civilians were massacred in Paris, France.
The only rationale response to these twin crises was to immediately convene a Summit of the leaders of the nations which make up the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to co-ordinate the military bloc's response.
Unfortunately it seems that while the attacks were still going on Obama telephoned French President Francois Hollande to put pressure on him not to call that NATO Summit because Obama instead wanted to the attend the G20 Summit in Turkey on November 15/16th (15-16/11/15).
This was extremely problematic because the G20 Summit host - Turkey's Erdogan - along with one of his guests - Saudi Arabia's King Salman al-Saud - are considered the prime suspects in the two recent terror attacks. As such it was very difficult to speak freely about the international response in their presence.
Therefore all the discussion had to wait until Tuesday (17/11/15). However with Obama still refusing to meet with NATO this discussion had to be played out in the media.
If you are not familiar with this type of discussion it could have appeared extremely alarming.
For example on Tuesday French intelligence provided German intelligence with information regarding an imminent attack on a football friendly being played between Germany and the Netherlands in Hannover, Germany. This caused the match to be immediately cancelled.
This concept of received intelligence leaving no option but to act was intended to bring back memories of the 2005 G8 Summit which saw unsustainable third world debt written off. There seems to be hope of a similar miracle at the upcoming COP21 Summit.
On Tuesday evenings I tend to go to the pub with my father for dinner. In an effort to trigger concerns about my safety and security it is common for emergency vehicles - normally ambulances - to be parked across the road from the pub - outside the railway station - to dramatically fill the pub with blue flashing lights.
The Hannover plan was centred around explosives being smuggled into the stadium in an ambulance and then another bombing at the train station.
On March 24th (24/3/15) a suicidal pilot - who apparently also answered to the name "Obama" - crashed Germanwings flight 9525 into the French Alps killing all 150 aboard. This could largely be interpreted as Germany dumping the issue of my safety and security on France's heads in order to silence the Sunni extremists within France's Foreign Ministry during negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.
Therefore France seemed to be enquiring whether Germany would support them if they called a NATO Summit and Obama refused.
France has not felt the need to enquire of the UK's support.
That's because the UK seems to be in advanced discussion with the US as to whether Obama will be removed from office should he attempt to withdraw the US from NATO in order to form a rival military alliance with Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
That rival bloc has been codenamed "Pegasus" because everywhere it clomps it's hooves a new spring appears.
For example on Tuesday night a British Airways (BA) flight into Logan Airport in Boston, US had to be met by security officials after a drunk Polish passenger tried to force their way into the cockpit in the style of Germanwings flight 9525.
This invoked memories of the BA flight that had to be diverted to Canada on July 29th (29/6/15) over a false bomb threat. That seemed to be a reference to Obama's decision to give Erdogan permission to launch air-strikes against forces fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria.
It also invoked memories of the BA flight that caught fire on the runway at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. That seemed to be a reference to Pegasus' ongoing war against Yemen.
The fact the passenger was Polish was a reference to Poland's role in migration within the European Union (EU) and it's apparent support of ISIL's war against everything.
Today British police announced that they had made arrests over the shooting of their fellow officer - Yvonne Fletcher - outside Libya's London Embassy in 1984.
Apart from the reference to the Lockerbie bombing which appears to have been re-created over Sinai this makes the point that when British police are politically assassinated the investigation will not rest until the perpetrators have been brought to justice.
In New York City, US on December 20th 2014 (20/10/14) two police officers were politically assassinated. The man who is widely seen to have ordered this assassination - Al Sharpton - has not only not been arrested he is still being given a platform to spout his views on the nationwide news broadcaster MSNBC.
Also today a police officer was gunned down in a targeted assassination in Los Angles, US. The persistent concern is that rather then leaving office in good grace Obama will instead order his boot-boys onto the streets in a desperate attempt to cling to office like so many dictators who have fallen before him.
Poland also tried to get into the act today when a passenger flight to Egypt had to be diverted to Bulgaria amid a hoax bomb threat.
It is unlikely that Poland's position of blocking security checks on Syrian refugees along with it's support for ISIL's Shamali Province - which was known as "Ukraine" prior to the US military intervention - enjoy much support in light of recent events.
Even the US have put a USD5 million bounty on the head of an ISIL leader who's known as "The Shimali."
The real joke is that Obama isn't actually missing. Instead he's blown off his NATO responsibilities to attend the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Malaysia - as in Malaysia Airlines flights MH370 & MH17.
Obama's rationale for this is that he will be able to convince the ASEAN nations to ally themselves with the US in order to protect them from the bogeyman of China. However in doing this Obama is making clear that the US will abandon it's allies at the drop of a hat.
For example across the US there are many buildings, streets and neighbourhoods named "Lafayette."
This is in tribute to Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette - Frenchman who fought alongside America in the Revolutionary War of 1775-1783. America's first President George Washington considered Lafayette to be like a friend and son to him.
So France has actually been a military ally of America since the war in which America came into being.
It's a shame Obama's press secretary seems unaware of that.
18:00 on 19/11/15 (UK date).
Thursday, 19 November 2015
Tuesday, 17 November 2015
The Bombing of Flight 7K9268.
On October 31st (31/10/15) an Airbus A321 operated by the Russian Kogalymavia Airlines under the brandname "Metrojet" - callsign 7K9268 - crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula killing all 224 civilians aboard.
At the time I laid out three possible scenarios involving the tail-plane breaking off, a technical fault causing the fuel tanks to explode or a terrorist bomb. I also said that before I could choose between either of these scenarios I needed more evidence.
I said this knowing that it can takes months, if not years, for such evidence to be gathered.
For example in the case of a bomb first you need to collect up every tiny fragment of the aircraft. You then need to swab each one of the fragments and run the swabs through a series of machines that will identify the chemical traces. The results of those tests then need to be interpreted by an expert.
How long this testing procedure takes really depends on how long it takes you to find all the fragments, how many machines you've got to run the tests and how many experts you've got to interpret the results.
Today Russia confirmed that they have not only found explosive residue on the fragments but enough residue to make an informed guess at the type and amount of explosive used. We cannot yet conclusively say that it was an act of terrorism but seems unlikely to have been an act of friendship.
It might seem like I'm half-assing it but everything I said about the bombing scenario remains as valid now as it does when I wrote it here;
Obviously the western media - particularly in the US - still find it far too traumatic to talk about how the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are getting done. However I gather that Russia's response to today's development has been robust to say the least.
The biggest problem in the fight against ISIL in recent months has been Turkey's formal joining of the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR).
The condition that Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded which US President Obama foolishly agreed to is that CJTFOIR was no longer allowed to conduct air-strikes in support of Kurdish-led forces.
As Kurdish-led forces are the only ground force fighting ISIL in Syria Erdogan's demand had the effect of establishing a vast aerial dome over ISIL heartland around Raqqa and the Euphrates River. For almost two and half months this dome has more or less succeeded in protecting ISIL's de facto capital from any form of aerial attack.
Having joined the fight on September 30th (30/9/15) Russia today didn't so much knock on the door of that protective dome as kicked it the f*ck in.
Although they stopped short of using every weapon in their arsenal Russia flew 65 missions against Raqqa today. 25 of these missions were conducted by Tu-95 (Bear), Tu-22 (Blinder) and Tu-160 (Blackjack) bombers. These are all long-range, strategic bombers that all flew from bases inside of Russia and carry massive bomb payloads.
The Tu-160 which is the equivalent of the US' B1-Lancer can carry 80,000kg (176,370 lbs) of conventional explosives. Although we will have to wait until tomorrow's press conference to confirm my understanding is that each aircraft delivered it's full payload to Raqqa.
Russia also fired 34 3M-54 Klub (NATO: "Sizzler") Cruise-type missile on Raqqa. Unlike on October 8th (8/10/15) these missiles were fired from Russian ships in the Mediterranean Sea rather then the Caspian Sea.
As I said in October in order to re-supply ships in the Mediterranean Russia will have to send supply ships from it's ports in Crimea over the Black Sea and through the Bosphorus Strait which actually runs through the middle of the Turkish city of Istanbul.
Given his unwavering support for ISIL there is a concern that Erdogan will close that important shipping lane in order to prevent the Russian ships being re-supplied in order to further protect ISIL.
As such Russian President Vladimir Putin's message to Erdogan seems to be; "Come and Have a Go if You Think You're Hard Enough!"
We all wait with baited breath to see which way Obama will fall.
22:55 on 17/11/15 (UK date).
At the time I laid out three possible scenarios involving the tail-plane breaking off, a technical fault causing the fuel tanks to explode or a terrorist bomb. I also said that before I could choose between either of these scenarios I needed more evidence.
I said this knowing that it can takes months, if not years, for such evidence to be gathered.
For example in the case of a bomb first you need to collect up every tiny fragment of the aircraft. You then need to swab each one of the fragments and run the swabs through a series of machines that will identify the chemical traces. The results of those tests then need to be interpreted by an expert.
How long this testing procedure takes really depends on how long it takes you to find all the fragments, how many machines you've got to run the tests and how many experts you've got to interpret the results.
Today Russia confirmed that they have not only found explosive residue on the fragments but enough residue to make an informed guess at the type and amount of explosive used. We cannot yet conclusively say that it was an act of terrorism but seems unlikely to have been an act of friendship.
It might seem like I'm half-assing it but everything I said about the bombing scenario remains as valid now as it does when I wrote it here;
- http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/the-crash-of-flight-7k9268.html
- http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/the-7k9268-dramatic-display-team.html
Obviously the western media - particularly in the US - still find it far too traumatic to talk about how the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are getting done. However I gather that Russia's response to today's development has been robust to say the least.
The biggest problem in the fight against ISIL in recent months has been Turkey's formal joining of the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR).
The condition that Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded which US President Obama foolishly agreed to is that CJTFOIR was no longer allowed to conduct air-strikes in support of Kurdish-led forces.
As Kurdish-led forces are the only ground force fighting ISIL in Syria Erdogan's demand had the effect of establishing a vast aerial dome over ISIL heartland around Raqqa and the Euphrates River. For almost two and half months this dome has more or less succeeded in protecting ISIL's de facto capital from any form of aerial attack.
Having joined the fight on September 30th (30/9/15) Russia today didn't so much knock on the door of that protective dome as kicked it the f*ck in.
Although they stopped short of using every weapon in their arsenal Russia flew 65 missions against Raqqa today. 25 of these missions were conducted by Tu-95 (Bear), Tu-22 (Blinder) and Tu-160 (Blackjack) bombers. These are all long-range, strategic bombers that all flew from bases inside of Russia and carry massive bomb payloads.
The Tu-160 which is the equivalent of the US' B1-Lancer can carry 80,000kg (176,370 lbs) of conventional explosives. Although we will have to wait until tomorrow's press conference to confirm my understanding is that each aircraft delivered it's full payload to Raqqa.
Russia also fired 34 3M-54 Klub (NATO: "Sizzler") Cruise-type missile on Raqqa. Unlike on October 8th (8/10/15) these missiles were fired from Russian ships in the Mediterranean Sea rather then the Caspian Sea.
As I said in October in order to re-supply ships in the Mediterranean Russia will have to send supply ships from it's ports in Crimea over the Black Sea and through the Bosphorus Strait which actually runs through the middle of the Turkish city of Istanbul.
Given his unwavering support for ISIL there is a concern that Erdogan will close that important shipping lane in order to prevent the Russian ships being re-supplied in order to further protect ISIL.
As such Russian President Vladimir Putin's message to Erdogan seems to be; "Come and Have a Go if You Think You're Hard Enough!"
We all wait with baited breath to see which way Obama will fall.
22:55 on 17/11/15 (UK date).
It's Time to Fix Music.
On Sunday (15/11/15) evening I went to the pub for dinner with my father and brother.
You may have been tipped off to this by France's decision to let off fireworks amongst mourners gathered in Paris' Place de Republique. Although this caused a degree of panic amongst the crowd I took it as a sign that although alert the French security establishment is far from shaken to its core.
This dinner date was actually meant to take place last weekend. Unfortunately it was cancelled at the last minute due to my brother being dispatched to Lisbon, Portugal to host some political debate/think tank event.
Obviously with all three of us being somewhat interested in politics and due to my brother's jet-setting lifestyle the Paris Massacres did come up in converstation. In fact one of my first reactions to hearing the news was to check which European capital my brother was in at the time.
It turns out he'd been in London, UK but just that morning he'd been speaking to one of his work friends who lives in Paris. Apparently his French wife was utterly furious with him because that morning he'd taken their 6 year old son for his usual Sunday morning stroll to the cafe in complete defiance of all the curfew orders. This guy is originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
When it comes to terrorising people from Belfast the bar's been set pretty high.
The other thing that hit home was that all three of us have been the guy whose minimum wage job it was to stop any suicide bombers breaching the stadium perimeter.
This sort of led onto a conversation about the plan to try and get English football fans to sing the French National Anthem - "La Marseillaise" - at tonight's friendly against France. After all English football fans aren't exactly famous for being multi-lingual nor particularly respectful of other people's cultures.
In fact I would go so far as to suggest that this was an idea dreamt up by and English Rugby fan.
As conversations in pubs tend to do this soon morphed into a discussion about another song - "The Fields of Athenry."
This is the unofficial anthem of Irish rugby fans and sometimes football fans. Curiously it was sung almost constantly throughout France's Rugby World Cup quarter-final against New Zealand - something that I think still counts as the worst massacre France has been through this year.
The Fields of Athenry is actually is actually a very strong protest song about the occupation of Ireland by the Scottish King. It makes particular reference to the way that famine was used as a mechanism for ethnic cleansing.
Rugby fans get away with singing it because all their love is on the wingers such as Sexton, Lomu or Habana. It's often heart breaking to see them cut down by chop tackles. The British police are less keen on football fans singing it.
If you understand the lyrics La Marseillaise is also quite a full blooded song. Most of it is about slitting the throats of the aristocracy and using their impure (blue) blood to water the fields of the working class.
Unfortunately when the traitors of Le Pen's National Front (FN) start singing it aggressively in response to an Islamist terror attack it can take on a much more sinister tone.
I thought the cultural differences between football fans and rugby fans was rather a safe topic of conversation at a G20 Summit that was looking like an extremely bad idea long before this latest round of attacks.
As for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's constant attempts to drown out the horror of their foreign policy with relentless racist chuntering. Well my contempt for them is both genuine and heartfelt.
After all the slogan "Black Lives Matter" has never sounded so empty as when you're looking at photographs of the April 2nd 2015 (2/4/15) attacks in Garissa, Kenya.
I actually think that anyone who is prepared to be in the same room as either Obama or Clinton needs to ask some very serious questions of themselves.
17:00 on 17/11/15 (UK date).
You may have been tipped off to this by France's decision to let off fireworks amongst mourners gathered in Paris' Place de Republique. Although this caused a degree of panic amongst the crowd I took it as a sign that although alert the French security establishment is far from shaken to its core.
This dinner date was actually meant to take place last weekend. Unfortunately it was cancelled at the last minute due to my brother being dispatched to Lisbon, Portugal to host some political debate/think tank event.
Obviously with all three of us being somewhat interested in politics and due to my brother's jet-setting lifestyle the Paris Massacres did come up in converstation. In fact one of my first reactions to hearing the news was to check which European capital my brother was in at the time.
It turns out he'd been in London, UK but just that morning he'd been speaking to one of his work friends who lives in Paris. Apparently his French wife was utterly furious with him because that morning he'd taken their 6 year old son for his usual Sunday morning stroll to the cafe in complete defiance of all the curfew orders. This guy is originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
When it comes to terrorising people from Belfast the bar's been set pretty high.
The other thing that hit home was that all three of us have been the guy whose minimum wage job it was to stop any suicide bombers breaching the stadium perimeter.
This sort of led onto a conversation about the plan to try and get English football fans to sing the French National Anthem - "La Marseillaise" - at tonight's friendly against France. After all English football fans aren't exactly famous for being multi-lingual nor particularly respectful of other people's cultures.
In fact I would go so far as to suggest that this was an idea dreamt up by and English Rugby fan.
As conversations in pubs tend to do this soon morphed into a discussion about another song - "The Fields of Athenry."
This is the unofficial anthem of Irish rugby fans and sometimes football fans. Curiously it was sung almost constantly throughout France's Rugby World Cup quarter-final against New Zealand - something that I think still counts as the worst massacre France has been through this year.
The Fields of Athenry is actually is actually a very strong protest song about the occupation of Ireland by the Scottish King. It makes particular reference to the way that famine was used as a mechanism for ethnic cleansing.
Rugby fans get away with singing it because all their love is on the wingers such as Sexton, Lomu or Habana. It's often heart breaking to see them cut down by chop tackles. The British police are less keen on football fans singing it.
If you understand the lyrics La Marseillaise is also quite a full blooded song. Most of it is about slitting the throats of the aristocracy and using their impure (blue) blood to water the fields of the working class.
Unfortunately when the traitors of Le Pen's National Front (FN) start singing it aggressively in response to an Islamist terror attack it can take on a much more sinister tone.
I thought the cultural differences between football fans and rugby fans was rather a safe topic of conversation at a G20 Summit that was looking like an extremely bad idea long before this latest round of attacks.
As for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's constant attempts to drown out the horror of their foreign policy with relentless racist chuntering. Well my contempt for them is both genuine and heartfelt.
After all the slogan "Black Lives Matter" has never sounded so empty as when you're looking at photographs of the April 2nd 2015 (2/4/15) attacks in Garissa, Kenya.
I actually think that anyone who is prepared to be in the same room as either Obama or Clinton needs to ask some very serious questions of themselves.
17:00 on 17/11/15 (UK date).
Monday, 16 November 2015
ADP Compliance: My Thoughts
This is one of the
most controversial sections of the agreement because it would give the
Secretariat the power to impose financial penalties on nations that fail to
meet their commitments. This is not something that is popular amongst many
nations - the US in particular has indicated that it is opposed to such a
measure.
However in an
agreement that allows nations almost complete freedom to set their own commitments
there certainly needs to be a mechanism to make sure they follow through on
those commitments. Otherwise there isn't an agreement. Instead there is just a
forum for nations to make political announcements of emission reductions that
they have no intention of carrying out.
Obviously though the
first priority of this entire agreement is to get nations to reduce their
emissions in order to halt global warming. Therefore the priority of the
compliance provisions is to make sure that nations are able to comply with
their commitments rather than punishing them for failure.
As such the main bulk
of the work of the compliance provisions will be to monitor and work with
nations throughout the ex ante and ex post peer review processes and in
parallel throughout the commitment cycle. If it is identified that a nation is
struggling to meet it's commitments the compliance mechanism should be
empowered to work with the nation to identify the reasons for its lack of progress
and provide solutions. This can obviously involve technical expertise but
struggling nations could also be given priority under the financial mechanisms.
Only if after all
this mentoring and support has been provided a nation still fails to meet its
commitments it will be referred to what is essentially an adjudication panel which
examine the specific case and impose an appropriate punishment.
In Force Majuere
situations the appropriate punishment is to take no further action. If a nation
has worked closely with the compliance mechanism throughout yet has failed
because it set itself too ambitious commitments then the appropriate punishment
would be a letter of censure advising the nation on how to set more realistic
targets in the future.
Financial penalties
such of fines are to be reserved only for circumstances where a nation has wilfully
failed to meet its self-imposed commitment having disregarded all the warnings
and advice in the peer review process and the compliance mechanism.
What level these
fines are to be set at is another complex issue. Obviously there needs to be a
sliding scale so failing to meet 10% of the commitment is not punished as
harshly as failing to meet 90% of the commitment. For maximum deterrent I think
the scale of the fine should be at the level of or exceeding any cost saving
the nation may have achieved by choosing not to meet it's commitments.
Therefore rather than
setting firm rules in the text of the agreement I would prefer to give the
adjudication panel a significant degree of freedom in the level of fines it can
impose. Even if that does create a degree of nervousness over what exactly
nations are signing up to. All the decisions of the panel though will need to
be bound by precedent so if it imposes a USD1000 fine on one nation it can't
then go on to impose a USD10000 fine on another nation for the same offence.
I also appreciate
that as always with this type of cross-jurisdictional enforcement there will be
a degree of negotiation over the scale of any fine between the panel and the
nation being fined.
If a nation considers
a panel decision to be unfair they can appeal to the general assembly of
parties. If a simple majority vote against the decision it is overturned and
the panel will reconsider the issue.
Obviously any
proceeds from financial penalties will go to enhancing climate change action.
This can either mean the Green Climate Fund (GCF) or a dedicated fund that the
compliance mechanism can use to make sure nations are able to comply and
therefore avoid fines.
The problem with all
this is that with no-one really wanting to talk about compliance this section
is significantly under developed. Therefore rather than simply choosing between
options I'm going to have to blend parts of the text with the parts from
Section J that I excluded to produce almost original text as I did with the peer
review section.
That is going to take
me a couple of days at least.
23:35 on 16/11/15 (UK date).
COP 21: The Security Situation.
Today I've been continuing to work through the text of this planned climate change agreement. I am currently dealing with Section K that deals with compliance.
Unfortunately this is one of the areas that is significantly under-developed. As a result rather then simply choosing from a list of options I'm going to have to try and develop the text. This is likely to take me until the end of the week.
Obviously though in light of Friday's (13/11/15) violence in the host city of Paris, France I do have to take a few moments to talk about the security arrangements for the COP21 Summit where this agreement is scheduled to be signed.
I should start by saying that I'm not particularly alarmed.
Of the six targets that were attacked only one - the Stade de France - had what I would consider a dedicated security perimeter.
It's been more then a decade since I worked in football security but even then we were well aware of suicide bombers desire to blow themselves up in a crowded area like a football stadium and the consequences of such a thing happening. As a result we had procedures in place to stop it from happening.
It seems that at Stade de France those procedures worked perfectly. The - now confirmed - two suicide bombers were unable breach the stadium perimeter and blew themselves up outside killing only themselves and an Egyptian tourist who was initially thought to be a third bomber.
The football match continued unaffected and actually at the end of the game spectators were held inside the stadium because it was considered one of the safest places in the city at that point.
The COP21 Summit itself will be held at a specially constructed site in Paris-Le Bourget which is on the very outskirts of Paris close to Le Bourget Airport.
Although it's not the sort of detail you would include in an online registry the site has been specifically designed with security in mind. As such it has an even stronger security perimeter then the one at Stade de France which worked just fine.
The perimeter around the COP21 can be strengthened even further by simply bringing more security staff/soldiers. There is obviously a degree of concern about crowding at entry points so what they might do is establish an outer perimeter at which only people's accreditation is checked allowing them to pass quickly through. The more time consuming security searches will then be carried out at an inner perimeter.
The general thinking on this sort of thing is that if a threat gets as far as the perimeter then the security plan has already failed. As a result there will also be a large intelligence operation to eliminate threats before they emerge. This will be largely unseen and will take place far away from the venue itself.
Almost two weeks prior to Friday's attacks France announced that it would be suspending the Schengen border free agreement and re-introducing border controls for the duration of COP21.
Although you can't completely eliminate illegal entry through sea ports etc this should significantly reduce the chances of any threats from outside of France entering the country during the summit. It's a pretty standard procedure that was actually used by Germany in 2007 to keep anti-G8 protesters out.
There is of course the issue of threats that are already in France. This is an area that does cause some concern because France has long complained that it lacks the resources to properly monitor all the homegrown threats. However that's really only a problem when you've got to monitor them indefinitely. It is much easier to keep people locked down for just two to three weeks.
Also as part of the State of Emergency legislation that France is bringing in in response to Friday's attacks house arrest has been introduced. This eliminates the needs for large surveillance teams because instead you just park a police car outside the person's house. If they try and leave they'll be immediately arrested and sent to prison.
It has also been confirmed that US President Barack Obama will be attending COP21. Although they might not be in a desperate rush to do so at the moment the US intelligence services have all sworn an oath to protect their President and they are prepared to go to extreme lengths to do so. So alongside the French intelligence operation there will also be a vast US operation looking over their shoulder and plugging any gaps.
All of the other Heads of Government/State (HOGS) who've confirmed that they'll be attending - Russian President Vladimir Putin for example - will also be bringing their own intelligence operations. So it's likely that not only will every potential terrorist in France be spied upon they'll also be several other intelligence agencies spying on the people spying on the terrorists.
Therefore my main concern is actually how all this will effect the mood or atmosphere of the summit.
It's well established that terrorists carry out their attacks because they know they can't defeat their enemy. So instead they try and created an atmosphere of terror that distracts their enemy causing them to defeat themselves.
Added to that the increased security measures could contribute to a threatening and suffocating atmosphere in which it's quite difficult to get work done.
For example soldiers in combat fatigues carrying assault rifles which can be quite intimidating to people who aren't used to be around them. Also simply avoid the hassle I suspect that delegates will enter the perimeter once in the morning and remain inside the perimeter until they leave at the end of the day.
That said most of these summits are hugely secure these days - COP20 was actually held in a military barracks. Therefore I don't think seasoned Summiteers will be in anyway intimidated by the security measured.
Plus in my experience of previous COP's people tend to end up sleeping at their desks rather then in their hotel beds.
I am though a little concerned about some of the youth delegates and those form the less experienced observer groups. They could get frustrated by the increased security and as a result paranoid enough to think the measures are an attempt to keep them out rather then a necessity to allow them to attend by keeping them safe.
20:50 on 16/11/15 (UK date).
Unfortunately this is one of the areas that is significantly under-developed. As a result rather then simply choosing from a list of options I'm going to have to try and develop the text. This is likely to take me until the end of the week.
Obviously though in light of Friday's (13/11/15) violence in the host city of Paris, France I do have to take a few moments to talk about the security arrangements for the COP21 Summit where this agreement is scheduled to be signed.
I should start by saying that I'm not particularly alarmed.
Of the six targets that were attacked only one - the Stade de France - had what I would consider a dedicated security perimeter.
It's been more then a decade since I worked in football security but even then we were well aware of suicide bombers desire to blow themselves up in a crowded area like a football stadium and the consequences of such a thing happening. As a result we had procedures in place to stop it from happening.
It seems that at Stade de France those procedures worked perfectly. The - now confirmed - two suicide bombers were unable breach the stadium perimeter and blew themselves up outside killing only themselves and an Egyptian tourist who was initially thought to be a third bomber.
The football match continued unaffected and actually at the end of the game spectators were held inside the stadium because it was considered one of the safest places in the city at that point.
The COP21 Summit itself will be held at a specially constructed site in Paris-Le Bourget which is on the very outskirts of Paris close to Le Bourget Airport.
Although it's not the sort of detail you would include in an online registry the site has been specifically designed with security in mind. As such it has an even stronger security perimeter then the one at Stade de France which worked just fine.
The perimeter around the COP21 can be strengthened even further by simply bringing more security staff/soldiers. There is obviously a degree of concern about crowding at entry points so what they might do is establish an outer perimeter at which only people's accreditation is checked allowing them to pass quickly through. The more time consuming security searches will then be carried out at an inner perimeter.
The general thinking on this sort of thing is that if a threat gets as far as the perimeter then the security plan has already failed. As a result there will also be a large intelligence operation to eliminate threats before they emerge. This will be largely unseen and will take place far away from the venue itself.
Almost two weeks prior to Friday's attacks France announced that it would be suspending the Schengen border free agreement and re-introducing border controls for the duration of COP21.
Although you can't completely eliminate illegal entry through sea ports etc this should significantly reduce the chances of any threats from outside of France entering the country during the summit. It's a pretty standard procedure that was actually used by Germany in 2007 to keep anti-G8 protesters out.
There is of course the issue of threats that are already in France. This is an area that does cause some concern because France has long complained that it lacks the resources to properly monitor all the homegrown threats. However that's really only a problem when you've got to monitor them indefinitely. It is much easier to keep people locked down for just two to three weeks.
Also as part of the State of Emergency legislation that France is bringing in in response to Friday's attacks house arrest has been introduced. This eliminates the needs for large surveillance teams because instead you just park a police car outside the person's house. If they try and leave they'll be immediately arrested and sent to prison.
It has also been confirmed that US President Barack Obama will be attending COP21. Although they might not be in a desperate rush to do so at the moment the US intelligence services have all sworn an oath to protect their President and they are prepared to go to extreme lengths to do so. So alongside the French intelligence operation there will also be a vast US operation looking over their shoulder and plugging any gaps.
All of the other Heads of Government/State (HOGS) who've confirmed that they'll be attending - Russian President Vladimir Putin for example - will also be bringing their own intelligence operations. So it's likely that not only will every potential terrorist in France be spied upon they'll also be several other intelligence agencies spying on the people spying on the terrorists.
Therefore my main concern is actually how all this will effect the mood or atmosphere of the summit.
It's well established that terrorists carry out their attacks because they know they can't defeat their enemy. So instead they try and created an atmosphere of terror that distracts their enemy causing them to defeat themselves.
Added to that the increased security measures could contribute to a threatening and suffocating atmosphere in which it's quite difficult to get work done.
For example soldiers in combat fatigues carrying assault rifles which can be quite intimidating to people who aren't used to be around them. Also simply avoid the hassle I suspect that delegates will enter the perimeter once in the morning and remain inside the perimeter until they leave at the end of the day.
That said most of these summits are hugely secure these days - COP20 was actually held in a military barracks. Therefore I don't think seasoned Summiteers will be in anyway intimidated by the security measured.
Plus in my experience of previous COP's people tend to end up sleeping at their desks rather then in their hotel beds.
I am though a little concerned about some of the youth delegates and those form the less experienced observer groups. They could get frustrated by the increased security and as a result paranoid enough to think the measures are an attempt to keep them out rather then a necessity to allow them to attend by keeping them safe.
20:50 on 16/11/15 (UK date).
Sunday, 15 November 2015
Paris Massacres: The Refugee Angle.
Following Friday's (13/11/15) triple suicide bombings at the Stade de France, Paris French authorities discovered a severed thumb.
As none but the attackers were killed in these incidents I found this quite amusing. After all the big joke from Thursday's (12/11/15) in Beirut, Lebanon was that there were actually 3 suicide bombers. The second killed the third by blowing off his *ahem* 'lower abdomen.' This prevented him detonating his bomb denying him his rights in paradise.
Anyway the French authorities ran this thumb through their police database and discovered that it belonged to a French criminal - Ismael Omar Mostefai. Although they were aware that Mostefari had travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) my current understanding is that they were not aware that he had returned to France.
This creates a strong suspicion that he re-entered the country as an irregular migrant. However as a French citizen and a member of ISIL he would not be legally eligible for either "Asylum Seeker" or "Refugee" status.
Suspicions that Mostefai had re-entered France by irregular means were strengthened by the discovery of an Egyptian and a Syrian passport at the scenes of the various attacks.
My current understanding is that the Egyptian passport has been proved to belong to a wholly innocent Egyptian tourist who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He now joins the ranks of all a the faceless, nameless Muslims who have be killed by ISIL.
The Syrian passport is more troubling because it appears that it was used to seek asylum along the Balkan route. In accordance with the Dublin agreement Greece scanned the passport and finger-printed the individual who presented it. Despite not being a European Union (EU) member Serbia also scanned the passport although they suspect it of being a fake.
This presents a huge problem because currently the biggest issuer of Syrian passports is not Syria - it's Turkey.
Obviously it would be a very big statement to accuse Turkey of forging Syrian passports in order to assist ISIL's recruits journey into Syria.
However Turkey has certainly made clear that the presence of these forged passports make it extremely difficult for them to stop Syrian 'nationals' re-entering ISIL held territory. They though seem to have absolutely no problem denying Syrian passports bearing Kurdish names re-entry to Syria.
Unfortunately I've long since learnt that if I don't take at least one day a week off things start falling off of me. Therefore I am unable to discuss this issue in more detail.
However before our leader's failures get drowned out in the usual round of racist chuntering I suggest you re-read these;
Instead it is a problem we thought that if we ignored it then it would magically disappear in the next news cycle or election campaign.
18:00 on 15/11/15 (UK date).
As none but the attackers were killed in these incidents I found this quite amusing. After all the big joke from Thursday's (12/11/15) in Beirut, Lebanon was that there were actually 3 suicide bombers. The second killed the third by blowing off his *ahem* 'lower abdomen.' This prevented him detonating his bomb denying him his rights in paradise.
Anyway the French authorities ran this thumb through their police database and discovered that it belonged to a French criminal - Ismael Omar Mostefai. Although they were aware that Mostefari had travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) my current understanding is that they were not aware that he had returned to France.
This creates a strong suspicion that he re-entered the country as an irregular migrant. However as a French citizen and a member of ISIL he would not be legally eligible for either "Asylum Seeker" or "Refugee" status.
Suspicions that Mostefai had re-entered France by irregular means were strengthened by the discovery of an Egyptian and a Syrian passport at the scenes of the various attacks.
My current understanding is that the Egyptian passport has been proved to belong to a wholly innocent Egyptian tourist who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He now joins the ranks of all a the faceless, nameless Muslims who have be killed by ISIL.
The Syrian passport is more troubling because it appears that it was used to seek asylum along the Balkan route. In accordance with the Dublin agreement Greece scanned the passport and finger-printed the individual who presented it. Despite not being a European Union (EU) member Serbia also scanned the passport although they suspect it of being a fake.
This presents a huge problem because currently the biggest issuer of Syrian passports is not Syria - it's Turkey.
Obviously it would be a very big statement to accuse Turkey of forging Syrian passports in order to assist ISIL's recruits journey into Syria.
However Turkey has certainly made clear that the presence of these forged passports make it extremely difficult for them to stop Syrian 'nationals' re-entering ISIL held territory. They though seem to have absolutely no problem denying Syrian passports bearing Kurdish names re-entry to Syria.
Unfortunately I've long since learnt that if I don't take at least one day a week off things start falling off of me. Therefore I am unable to discuss this issue in more detail.
However before our leader's failures get drowned out in the usual round of racist chuntering I suggest you re-read these;
- http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/operation-featherweight-month-13-week-4_22.html
- http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/operation-featherweight-month-14-week-2.html
- http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/operation-featherweight-month-14-week-2_7.html
- http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/operation-featherweight-month-14-week-4_21.html
- http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/hungarys-illegal-migration-moves.html
- http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/operation-featherweight-month-16-week-1_30.html
Instead it is a problem we thought that if we ignored it then it would magically disappear in the next news cycle or election campaign.
18:00 on 15/11/15 (UK date).
Saturday, 14 November 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 16, Week 3, Day 4.
Monday November 30th (30/11/15) will see the opening of the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris, France.
By the Summit's end on December 11th (11/12/15) it is expected to produce a new global agreement to tackle climate change replacing the Kyoto Protocol (KP).
Back when this process started in Cancun, Mexico in 2010 Ben Ali was still the President of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak was still the President of Egypt and Syria was a safe and stable secular nation.
I'll be damned if I going to let five years of hard work fall apart in the last few weeks for the sake of a war that is clearly still going to be with us on December 12th (12/12/15).
So until then my updates on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria are likely to be limited to periodic overviews of the main events rather then detailed analysis' of every minor issue.
Since my last update on November 3rd (3/11/15) there have been some significant developments.
I suppose I should start with the liberation of Sinjar/Shingal which was completed just today. This is of course the city that sits at the foot of Sinjar/Shingal mountain around 50km (30 miles) east of Iraq's border with Iraq and Syria and around 55km (33 miles) west of Mosul - ISIL de facto capital in Iraq.
You may remember that in August 2014 ISIL advanced into Sinjar and proceeded to massacre 5,000 men belong to the Yezidi religion who are part of the Kurdish ethnic group. ISIL kidnapped and raped almost the same number of Yezidi women and girls many of who are still being kept in sexual slavery.
The rest of the population of Sinjar city - some 50,000 people - were forced to flee up Mount Sinjar where they became trapped and faced death by dehydration and starvation.
This generated so much fury amongst the White House press corp that US President Obama knew that with the mid-term elections just 3 months away he was no longer able to freely admit that ISIL were his allies and ISIL's values are his values.
So Obama dispatched a handful of US Navy jets to fly in skies over Iraq and bomb the occasional patch or desert while Obama built up the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML) as the acceptable face of Sunni extremism in Iraq and Syria.
Eventually Kurdish forces were able to rescue the Yezidi from Mount Sinjar and by the spring of 2015 they had been able to force ISIL back from the foot of the mountain and out of most of Sinjar city.
It was at this point Kurdish forces hit a problem in the form of thousands of landmines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) that ISIL had littered across Sinjar city and the surrounding area.
Lacking the expertise to clear these booby-traps the Kurdish forces were unable to secure the city and the surrounding area. This allowed ISIL to return a small presence of some 600 fighters to around 75% of Sinjar city.
Almost immediately the UK and Germany stepped up sending bomb disposal experts to train the Peshmerga - the armed force of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) - in how to defuse and remove all these explosives. This training was completed in the late summer at which point the operation to liberate Sinjar hit another problem.
The main Kurdish force that rescued the Yezidi from Mount Sinjar and initially liberated Sinjar city was the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). In the process the PKK formed, armed and trained the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) - a militia made up exclusively of Yezidi Kurds.
In a General Election in June 2015 Turkey's Justice & Development Party (AKP) failed to win the Parliamentary majority it needed to make party founder Recep Tayyip Erdogan President for life in defiance of Turkey's constitution.
With the permission of US President Obama Erdogan then declared war on the PKK in an effort to wrap himself in the flag and win that majority at a fresh round of elections. Erdogan's self-styled "War on Terror" saw him launch air-strikes against the training camps of the PKK and the YBS in northern Iraq. Those air-strikes against anti-ISIL forces continue.
With US President Obama and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) refusing to demand that Erdogan ceased those strikes and respected Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity in line with the UN Charter the KRG felt that it was in no position to demand the strikes end.
So instead they turned on the PKK demanding that they comply with Erdogan's demand that they stop fighting ISIL and leave Iraq. This obviously led to a high degree of tension between the KRG, the PKK and the YBS that further delayed the liberation of Sinjar.
After an agreement that the KRG would be given full credit for the liberation of Sinjar despite the PKK and the YBS already holding around 25% of the city the operation was finally ready to start in the week beginning November 2nd (2/11/15). However it was delayed by bad weather.
On Thursday (12/11/15) the combined forces of the Peshmerga, the PKK, the YBS and the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) backed by close air-support from the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - finally began their operation.
On the first day the Kurdish forces encircled Sinjar city from three directions cutting off access to the city. On the second day they swept into the city completely liberating it.
In the process Kurdish forces have cleared around 175km^2 (105 miles^2) from ISIL control liberating several villages that Yezidi refugees are now desperate to return to.
They also succeeded in taking control of the strategically important Highway 47 where it runs through Sinjar city. This cuts ISIL's main supply route between Mosul and Raqqa - it's de facto capital in Syria.
Although there are other, smaller roads and Kurdish forces were already in control of Highway 47 where is runs through Tal Afar between Sinjar and Mosul this tightens the noose around Mosul in preparation for an operation to finally liberate the city.
Apart from their support for the liberation of Sinjar the YPG who also been busy with an operation of their own as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which were formed on October 16th (16/10/15).
This is of course the operation that began on October 30th (30/10/15) that aims to drive ISIL back from the city of Hasakah and the town of Tel Hamees by liberating the areas around al-Hol and al-Ghazayleh.
Rather annoyingly my Internet connection is mysteriously preventing me from reading the latest updates on this operation which unfortunately I have failed to memorise. However the first objective is to sweep through all the small villages and farms in the area before encircling al-Hol and al-Ghazayleh.
The SDF seem to be making steady progress in the objective killing significant numbers of ISIL fighters in the process.
The success of the SDF has clearly not gone unnoticed by Turkey who continue artillery barrages against SDF positions along the Turkish border. The majority of this fire in recent days has been directed against Kobane including on November 10th (10/11/15) where four civilians were killed in Turkish attacks.
There has also been significant progress in the west of Syria.
This is the area where after joining up with Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF) to form the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition the FML have been advancing against Syrian government forces.
With the support of Russian air-power which is averaging around 150 air-strikes daily it seems that the JAF advance has been completely stopped and steady progress is being made rolling it back.
On November 4th (4/11/15) Syrian government had succeeded in liberating so much of the surrounding territory from JAF they were able to re-open the M5 Motorway that runs all the way from the capital Damascus to the city of Aleppo.
This re-establishes a vital supply line for Syrian government forces and cuts JAF's supply lines from Turkey into Hama, Homs, Idlib and Latakia provinces.
Capitalising on these improved supply lines on November 10th (10/11/15) Syrian government forces were finally able to break through ISIL lines lifting the siege on Kweires Airbase which is just south of Aleppo city.
Along with emerging reports that Syrian government forces have also been able to liberate some of the suburbs of Aleppo city from ISIL this creates a very real possibility that they will very soon re-establish control over both Aleppo city and province trapping ISIL in a very small area between Aleppo city and the SDF controlled buffer-zone on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River.
Essentially it means that the situation will have returned to the one that existed when CJTFOIR began operations.
In response to these ISIL defeats Turkey seems to be furious. On Wednesday (11/11/15) sources close to Erdogan's AKP announced that plans are being finalised to send 10,500 Turkish troops into Aleppo province in mid-December in order to prevent ISIL from being defeated.
Obviously this could be post-election bluster but it is a situation that needs to be very carefully monitored. The most obvious deterrent is that if Turkish troops were to mount this wholly illegal invasion they would be cut to pieces by Russian air-power.
However US President Obama seems to be working very hard to remove that deterrent by deploying US F-15E fighter jets to Incirlik in Turkey. The only conceivable role for these air-superiority fighters would be to attack Russian aircraft in order to protect a Turkish invasion force.
On Thursday (12/11/15) Lebanon risked being dragged further into the ISIL quagmire when ISIL carried out twin suicide bombings against a Palestinian refugee camp in a Hezbollah controlled area killing 41.
Although particularly brutal this attack didn't really tell us anything new about the conflict.
It has never been about the government of Syria nor the government of Iraq. It has always been a Saudi attempt to exterminate all Shia Muslims. That is because Shia's are far less likely then Sunnis to be taken in by the Whabbist perversion of Islam that the al-Saud's use to keep their population in poverty and penury.
As such this is far from the first time that the conflict has spilled over into Lebanon. It is also why Russia was forced to intervene to prevent ISIL and associated forces reaching the Lebanese border.
Then of course there was yesterday's (13/11/15) killing of Mohammed Emwazi (AKA: Jihadi John) in US drone strike in Raqqa.
I am obviously far from upset by this news and might even go so far as to describe it as damn funny.
However Emwazi has not murdered a hostage since his true identity was revealed back in February 2015 - it seems that simply letting him know that we knew his identity was enough to scare him away. Since then though ISIL has not stopped murdering hostages.
Therefore if you ask me to assess the military value to Emwazi's death there simply isn't one.
Instead it seems to be Obama back in his favourite "Drone Queen" role.
The thinking being that if he can wrap himself up in the flag of one headline grabbing death it will prevent people asking all the difficult questions about the progress of the operation raised by the above.
Of course last night's massacres in Paris meant that everyone quickly forgot about Jihadi John and all those difficult questions are front and centre of every new bulletin.
So today the US tried repeating the same stunt with a drone strike that is believed to have killed the leader of ISIL's Libya branch.
Again I am far from upset that this man is dead. However although ISIL's growth in Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan underlines the complete failure of Obama's non-strategy ISIL are far from the biggest problem in Libya.
That remains the Libya Dawn Islamist militia in the west. These are the people who pushed Libya's elected government out of Tripoli and continue to wage a low-level civil war that has given ISIL space to flourish.
US President Obama's position on Libya Dawn - communicated through the UNSC - remains the same.
The results of Libya's election must be overturned and it's democratically elected government must be removed so the Islamists can rule the nation in accordance with a strict interpretation of Sharia law.
21:30 on 14/11/15 (UK date).
By the Summit's end on December 11th (11/12/15) it is expected to produce a new global agreement to tackle climate change replacing the Kyoto Protocol (KP).
Back when this process started in Cancun, Mexico in 2010 Ben Ali was still the President of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak was still the President of Egypt and Syria was a safe and stable secular nation.
I'll be damned if I going to let five years of hard work fall apart in the last few weeks for the sake of a war that is clearly still going to be with us on December 12th (12/12/15).
So until then my updates on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria are likely to be limited to periodic overviews of the main events rather then detailed analysis' of every minor issue.
Since my last update on November 3rd (3/11/15) there have been some significant developments.
I suppose I should start with the liberation of Sinjar/Shingal which was completed just today. This is of course the city that sits at the foot of Sinjar/Shingal mountain around 50km (30 miles) east of Iraq's border with Iraq and Syria and around 55km (33 miles) west of Mosul - ISIL de facto capital in Iraq.
You may remember that in August 2014 ISIL advanced into Sinjar and proceeded to massacre 5,000 men belong to the Yezidi religion who are part of the Kurdish ethnic group. ISIL kidnapped and raped almost the same number of Yezidi women and girls many of who are still being kept in sexual slavery.
The rest of the population of Sinjar city - some 50,000 people - were forced to flee up Mount Sinjar where they became trapped and faced death by dehydration and starvation.
This generated so much fury amongst the White House press corp that US President Obama knew that with the mid-term elections just 3 months away he was no longer able to freely admit that ISIL were his allies and ISIL's values are his values.
So Obama dispatched a handful of US Navy jets to fly in skies over Iraq and bomb the occasional patch or desert while Obama built up the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML) as the acceptable face of Sunni extremism in Iraq and Syria.
Eventually Kurdish forces were able to rescue the Yezidi from Mount Sinjar and by the spring of 2015 they had been able to force ISIL back from the foot of the mountain and out of most of Sinjar city.
It was at this point Kurdish forces hit a problem in the form of thousands of landmines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) that ISIL had littered across Sinjar city and the surrounding area.
Lacking the expertise to clear these booby-traps the Kurdish forces were unable to secure the city and the surrounding area. This allowed ISIL to return a small presence of some 600 fighters to around 75% of Sinjar city.
Almost immediately the UK and Germany stepped up sending bomb disposal experts to train the Peshmerga - the armed force of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) - in how to defuse and remove all these explosives. This training was completed in the late summer at which point the operation to liberate Sinjar hit another problem.
The main Kurdish force that rescued the Yezidi from Mount Sinjar and initially liberated Sinjar city was the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). In the process the PKK formed, armed and trained the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) - a militia made up exclusively of Yezidi Kurds.
In a General Election in June 2015 Turkey's Justice & Development Party (AKP) failed to win the Parliamentary majority it needed to make party founder Recep Tayyip Erdogan President for life in defiance of Turkey's constitution.
With the permission of US President Obama Erdogan then declared war on the PKK in an effort to wrap himself in the flag and win that majority at a fresh round of elections. Erdogan's self-styled "War on Terror" saw him launch air-strikes against the training camps of the PKK and the YBS in northern Iraq. Those air-strikes against anti-ISIL forces continue.
With US President Obama and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) refusing to demand that Erdogan ceased those strikes and respected Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity in line with the UN Charter the KRG felt that it was in no position to demand the strikes end.
So instead they turned on the PKK demanding that they comply with Erdogan's demand that they stop fighting ISIL and leave Iraq. This obviously led to a high degree of tension between the KRG, the PKK and the YBS that further delayed the liberation of Sinjar.
After an agreement that the KRG would be given full credit for the liberation of Sinjar despite the PKK and the YBS already holding around 25% of the city the operation was finally ready to start in the week beginning November 2nd (2/11/15). However it was delayed by bad weather.
On Thursday (12/11/15) the combined forces of the Peshmerga, the PKK, the YBS and the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) backed by close air-support from the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - finally began their operation.
On the first day the Kurdish forces encircled Sinjar city from three directions cutting off access to the city. On the second day they swept into the city completely liberating it.
In the process Kurdish forces have cleared around 175km^2 (105 miles^2) from ISIL control liberating several villages that Yezidi refugees are now desperate to return to.
They also succeeded in taking control of the strategically important Highway 47 where it runs through Sinjar city. This cuts ISIL's main supply route between Mosul and Raqqa - it's de facto capital in Syria.
Although there are other, smaller roads and Kurdish forces were already in control of Highway 47 where is runs through Tal Afar between Sinjar and Mosul this tightens the noose around Mosul in preparation for an operation to finally liberate the city.
Apart from their support for the liberation of Sinjar the YPG who also been busy with an operation of their own as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which were formed on October 16th (16/10/15).
This is of course the operation that began on October 30th (30/10/15) that aims to drive ISIL back from the city of Hasakah and the town of Tel Hamees by liberating the areas around al-Hol and al-Ghazayleh.
Rather annoyingly my Internet connection is mysteriously preventing me from reading the latest updates on this operation which unfortunately I have failed to memorise. However the first objective is to sweep through all the small villages and farms in the area before encircling al-Hol and al-Ghazayleh.
The SDF seem to be making steady progress in the objective killing significant numbers of ISIL fighters in the process.
The success of the SDF has clearly not gone unnoticed by Turkey who continue artillery barrages against SDF positions along the Turkish border. The majority of this fire in recent days has been directed against Kobane including on November 10th (10/11/15) where four civilians were killed in Turkish attacks.
There has also been significant progress in the west of Syria.
This is the area where after joining up with Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF) to form the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition the FML have been advancing against Syrian government forces.
With the support of Russian air-power which is averaging around 150 air-strikes daily it seems that the JAF advance has been completely stopped and steady progress is being made rolling it back.
On November 4th (4/11/15) Syrian government had succeeded in liberating so much of the surrounding territory from JAF they were able to re-open the M5 Motorway that runs all the way from the capital Damascus to the city of Aleppo.
This re-establishes a vital supply line for Syrian government forces and cuts JAF's supply lines from Turkey into Hama, Homs, Idlib and Latakia provinces.
Capitalising on these improved supply lines on November 10th (10/11/15) Syrian government forces were finally able to break through ISIL lines lifting the siege on Kweires Airbase which is just south of Aleppo city.
Along with emerging reports that Syrian government forces have also been able to liberate some of the suburbs of Aleppo city from ISIL this creates a very real possibility that they will very soon re-establish control over both Aleppo city and province trapping ISIL in a very small area between Aleppo city and the SDF controlled buffer-zone on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River.
Essentially it means that the situation will have returned to the one that existed when CJTFOIR began operations.
In response to these ISIL defeats Turkey seems to be furious. On Wednesday (11/11/15) sources close to Erdogan's AKP announced that plans are being finalised to send 10,500 Turkish troops into Aleppo province in mid-December in order to prevent ISIL from being defeated.
Obviously this could be post-election bluster but it is a situation that needs to be very carefully monitored. The most obvious deterrent is that if Turkish troops were to mount this wholly illegal invasion they would be cut to pieces by Russian air-power.
However US President Obama seems to be working very hard to remove that deterrent by deploying US F-15E fighter jets to Incirlik in Turkey. The only conceivable role for these air-superiority fighters would be to attack Russian aircraft in order to protect a Turkish invasion force.
On Thursday (12/11/15) Lebanon risked being dragged further into the ISIL quagmire when ISIL carried out twin suicide bombings against a Palestinian refugee camp in a Hezbollah controlled area killing 41.
Although particularly brutal this attack didn't really tell us anything new about the conflict.
It has never been about the government of Syria nor the government of Iraq. It has always been a Saudi attempt to exterminate all Shia Muslims. That is because Shia's are far less likely then Sunnis to be taken in by the Whabbist perversion of Islam that the al-Saud's use to keep their population in poverty and penury.
As such this is far from the first time that the conflict has spilled over into Lebanon. It is also why Russia was forced to intervene to prevent ISIL and associated forces reaching the Lebanese border.
Then of course there was yesterday's (13/11/15) killing of Mohammed Emwazi (AKA: Jihadi John) in US drone strike in Raqqa.
I am obviously far from upset by this news and might even go so far as to describe it as damn funny.
However Emwazi has not murdered a hostage since his true identity was revealed back in February 2015 - it seems that simply letting him know that we knew his identity was enough to scare him away. Since then though ISIL has not stopped murdering hostages.
Therefore if you ask me to assess the military value to Emwazi's death there simply isn't one.
Instead it seems to be Obama back in his favourite "Drone Queen" role.
The thinking being that if he can wrap himself up in the flag of one headline grabbing death it will prevent people asking all the difficult questions about the progress of the operation raised by the above.
Of course last night's massacres in Paris meant that everyone quickly forgot about Jihadi John and all those difficult questions are front and centre of every new bulletin.
So today the US tried repeating the same stunt with a drone strike that is believed to have killed the leader of ISIL's Libya branch.
Again I am far from upset that this man is dead. However although ISIL's growth in Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan underlines the complete failure of Obama's non-strategy ISIL are far from the biggest problem in Libya.
That remains the Libya Dawn Islamist militia in the west. These are the people who pushed Libya's elected government out of Tripoli and continue to wage a low-level civil war that has given ISIL space to flourish.
US President Obama's position on Libya Dawn - communicated through the UNSC - remains the same.
The results of Libya's election must be overturned and it's democratically elected government must be removed so the Islamists can rule the nation in accordance with a strict interpretation of Sharia law.
21:30 on 14/11/15 (UK date).
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