At dawn today the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) began their operation to liberate the city of Tikrit itself from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The assault began with a push from the university complex in the north down into the city. Initially I was a little concerned that this would be the only front of the assault which would obviously allow ISIL to concentrate their forces into repelling it. However the ISF have since also entered the city from the south opening up a second front.
So far the resistance being faced by the ISF has been light to moderate. However ISIL have built their defence of the city around heavy mining of the area backed up by sniper fire. As a result the operation is moving slowly with it taking roughly 30 minutes for the ISF to move through each street. The situation in Tikrit is obviously developing as a I write so I will keep and eye on its progress.
Even excluding the Tikrit operation it has been a tough couple of weeks for ISIL with them losing territory in the al-Huwaija district south-west of Kirkuk, around al-Baghdadi and Fallujah both in Iraq's Anbar province and an area of around 3000km^2 (1800 miles^2) surrounding the town to Tel Hamees in the Kurdish Cizire Canton in north-eastern Syria. Therefore there has been growing pressure on ISIL to show that they can still attack the Kurdish forces and the ISF and seize fresh territory.
Today ISIL's fightback has begun with co-ordinated attacks on the government held section of Ramadi which is roughly 100km (60 miles) to the west of Baghdad in Anbar province and on the town of Serekanyie/Ras al-Ayn which sits on the north-west border to the Cizire Canton.
The attack on Ramadi began with 7 co-ordinated car bombings and quickly developed into a large scale assault from several directions. The battle there is still ongoing making difficult the assess the situation but it appears that the ISF have succeeded in holding off the assault so far with no reports of ISIL gaining ground. There has also been no indication that the US-led coalition has been conducting air-strikes to help repel the attack.
The situation in Serekanyie appears to be more serious with at least 1000 ISIL fighters in tanks and armoured vehicles attacking the lightly armed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that control the canton. It would appear that so far ISIL have succeeded in capturing a small village outside of the town although there are no reports of Serekanyie itself being over-run.
It appears as though the attack on Serekanyie has been launched from Tel Abayd the main ISIL held town between the Cizire and Kobane cantons. This again raises the question of why coalition air-power isn't being better used to eliminate the threat that Tel Abayd poses to Kurdish positions in the area.
Last night ISIL released a video that purported to show the killing a 19 year old Palestinian - Muhammad Musallam - whom ISIL claim was a spy sent by Israel's Mossad spy agency.
The roughly 13 minute video which claims to have been produced by ISIL's own spy agency begins with a seated Musallam wearing the traditional orange jumpsuit being interviewed in front of a plain white wall about his spying activities. A resident of East Jerusalem on the West Bank Musallam claims that he was first recruited by Mossad to inform on people who take part in the frequent protest/riots in the area.
This is an inflammatory issue within Israel and the West Bank and just the other day it emerged that Israel's security forces had instructed the local councils to target people who participate in the protests by making sure all their taxes are up to date and they have all the correct building permits. The Israelis of course already make it pretty much impossible for West Bank residents to obtain the correct building permits. However I should point out that issues relating to West Bank protests are pretty much a weekly event in Israel.
The main problem with Musallam's claim is that Mossad don't operate in the West Bank because considered part of Israel it falls under the jurisdiction of Shin Bet - the internal security service. Musallam's story became even more incredible when he went on to claim that he'd been sent to a secret Mossad training camp where he was the only Palestinian student. It seems extremely unlikely that any branch of the Israeli intelligence services would go to the trouble and expense of sending someone they simply wanted to act as a low level informant for such intensive training.
Musallam went on to claim that after a few years working as an informant he was called into Mossad's headquarters and given the top secret mission of infiltrating ISIL. To prove how skilled they are at intelligence work ISIL illustrated this sequence with a Google-type map showing Mossad's HQ as if it was somehow considered a secret location.
After accepting his mission Musallam then described how he'd travelled to Syria using the much talked about pipeline through Turkey where people stay in guesthouses on the border for a few days before slipping into Syria. Apparently it was immediately after he'd crossed into Syria that ISIL's own intelligence agency used their vastly superior skills to identify Musallam as an Israeli spy and he was arrested. Curiously Musallam who was supposedly a prisoner in fear of his life helpfully decided to feature in a filmed reconstruction of his capture that was used to iillustrate this sequence.
With Musallam's "confession" out of the way the video announced that he'd been sentenced to death for his crimes. It then cut to an short sequence showing the killing which I will deal with after dinner.
18:15 on 11/3/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:40 on 11/3/15 (UK date) to add;
The first thing you notice about the death sequence is that it doesn't feature "Jihadi John." This could be a sign that now his identity has been revealed ISIL are no longer happy using Jihadi John in their videos. However I should point out that Jihadi John has only appeared in videos that are intended to send a message to a particular nation through the execution of a hostage. These spy agencies videos such as the killing of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasaesbeh are aimed much more at ISIL's own supporters so haven't featured Jihadi John before.
In this video the executioner role was filled by an unmasked Frenchman who has since been identified as Sabri Essid - the step-brother of Mohammed Merah who carried out a series of terror attacks in France in 2012. With the big COP21 climate change summit taking place in Paris, France at the end of the year jihadists around the world have declared France to be their number 1 target and will remind everybody of that fact at every opportunity.
Essid is accompanied by a boy of around 12-13 years old who has also been identified as a French national. He is part of what ISIL have dubbed "The Cubs of the Caliphate" who are children - often kidnapped - that ISIL have indoctrinated to fight as child soldiers. ISIL are immensely proud of their "Cubs" are frequently release videos of them being trained. I recently mentioned one of these which was featured on the UK TV show "The Last Leg" in which ISIL was compared to conservative, gun-owning American voters.
Very much in the style of that video the cub 'shoots' Musallam in the head with a handgun. I found this to be completely hilarious because being used to high quality TV shows and movies including cop shows such as "CSI" it was blatantly obvious that Musallam had not been shot at all. Instead ISIL had faked the execution using some truly terrible special effects.
As such I don't think that it terms of violence there would have been any problem showing this video on TV or allowing it to stay up on YouTube. However I do appreciate that people who don't share my knowledge of the security situation in the Israeli West Bank could have been taken in by the propaganda element of the video that proceeded the death sequence. I also suppose that it is possible that an Arab audience that aren't quite as experienced in artistic expression could have been fooled into think the shooting was real.
The video ended with a list of the names and addresses of people Musallam had claimed were his fellow Israeli spies operating in the West Bank. As Musallam has never been an Israeli spy this was most probably just a list cobbled together of people suspected of being spies, political rivals or simply neighbours that Musallam had fallen out with.
I think the main purpose of the video was to boost support for ISIL by appealing the the anti-Semitic sentiment that is sadly all too prevalent in the Muslim world. However the video was also released just a week before Israel's March 17th (17/3/15) election. Therefore it also seems like an attempt by ISIL to muscle in on that election by threatening to attack Israel.
At one point Essid talks about liberating Jerusalem "with permission." There has long been a suspicion that ISIL's Saudi backers have repeatedly assured Israel that ISIL will not attack them in order to avoid having Israel drop their demands for more sanctions on Saudi Arabia's mortal enemy Iran. This video seems to be ISIL making clear that the deal is off. Worryingly the video was proceeded by a gun attack on Israeli soldiers in the Golan Heights from within Syria. Fortunately no-one was seriously injured.
Perhaps even more alarmingly the day before the video was released Fatah who control the West Bank arrested more then 100 Hamas supporters who live in the West Bank on accusations that they were preparing acts of violence. This may have been a coincidence but it seems to indicate to me that Fatah have good enough links to ISIL to have advance knowledge that the video was being edited together and was about to be released. Hamas who control Gaza have of course been extremely difficult to deal with since ISIL emerged having not only fallen out with Israel but also now Egypt.
One thing that was noticeably missing from the video was any reference to Boko Haram's recent pledge of allegiance to ISIL. However it must be said that I don't really see how ISIL could have included a response within the narrative of the video especially with Boko Haram's pledge coming just two days before the video's release.
20:25 on 11/3/15 (UK date).
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 8, Week 2, Day 4.
At dawn today the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) moved into the town of al-Alam which sits some 7km (4 miles) to the north-east of Tikrit largely unopposed. The purpose of this seems to be to cut off any potential escape by fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from Tikrit into the al-Huwaija district.
As a result the ISF seem to be in their final assault positions for the liberation of Tikrit itself. There are some reports that operation has begun this evening although that has not been confirmed and they may just be probing, reconnaissance operations.
A clearer picture has begun to emerge of the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga's operation in al-Huwaija district yesterday. It's now been confirmed that they swept 30-40km (18-24 miles) south-west of Kirkuk City liberating the villages of Sakhra, Wadi Naft and Sada as they went. In the is effort the Peshmerga we assisted by 4 coalition air-strikes that destroyed multiple fighting positions, ground units and vehicles. 10 Peshmerga lost their lives in the operation including 3 Iranian-Kurdish volunteers while 100 ISIL fighters were confirmed killed.
Seemingly in response to the Kurdish operations south-west of Kirkuk ISIL overnight launched an attack on the Peshmerga front-line 30km (18 miles) from the regional capital of Arbil. After several hours of fighting this attack was repulsed at the cost of one Peshmerga dead and another wounded. There is as yet no word on ISIL casualties but several of their armoured vehicles were destroyed.
Also yesterday the ISF launched an operation against ISIL positions around Karma 8km (4.8 miles) north-east of Fallujah which itself is around 45km (27 miles) west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Here they were assisted by the coalition which carried out 3 air-strikes which destroyed two large ISIL ground units and several ISIL vehicles. The ISF estimate that 350 ISIL fighters were killed in the operation but that has not been confirmed.
17:45 on 10/3/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 21:32 to on 10/3/15 (UK date) to add;
Apparently the above needs padding so;
Today the Home Affairs select committee of the UK House of Commons has met to discuss those three girls who recently ran away from home to join ISIL. It's not that this received a lot of coverage in the western media but at one point I realised that if you flicked channels really quickly you could see what had been shown live on BBC News repeated on Sky News and then again on CNN International.
The meeting actually had three stages with the families of the missing girls (henceforth known as; "The Sultanas") giving evidence followed by representatives of London's Metropolitan Police and the UK Ambassador for Turkey.
I found the sequence involving the Sultanas particularly unedifying not least because the chair of the committee Keith Vaz was in a particularly stroppy mood. At one point he demanded that the person with the cough left the chamber because they were making it hard to concentrate.
Mainly though I found this sequence unpleasant because it was essentially a group of MP's demanding that the teenage older sister and elderly father of Sahima Begum explain everything that was wrong with the UK's counter-terrorism legislation with specific reference to Jihadists wishing to join ISIL. Their only response they could reasonably come up with to all this was;
"We don't know. Two months ago we'd never had to think about it. This ISIL b*llocks of establishing the Levant to bring about the apocalyptic war between Sunnis and Shias doesn't normally come up at Mosque!!"
The person I choose to blame for all this is the lawyer Tasnime Akunjee who seems to have decided that he is representing all of the Sultanas. Coming very much from the "If there's blame there's a claim" school of law Akunjee has decided that it is the police were at fault for not realising that 3 girls who their families and school didn't realise were going to run away to join ISIL were going to run away to join ISIL. Mr Akunjee of course also objects to the polices attempts to speak to either the girl's families,the girl's school or in fact any Muslim.
In short Mr Akunjee is a sh*t lawyer. However I will concede that the police should probably have sent their letter directly to the Sultanas parents rather then handing it to the school for the standard "letter home" routine. This is though a non-standard situation and we are all learning.
I am though rather disappointed that despite everyone rushing to cover the Sultanas evidence no-one found the time to cover the Turkish Ambassador's evidence. After all with the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) still struggling to get Turkey to comply with it's resolutions on ISIL and Foreign Ministries across the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) struggling to get Turkey to comply with it's membership commitments it's a bit much demanding that the Met police achieve where so many others have failed.
As a result the ISF seem to be in their final assault positions for the liberation of Tikrit itself. There are some reports that operation has begun this evening although that has not been confirmed and they may just be probing, reconnaissance operations.
A clearer picture has begun to emerge of the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga's operation in al-Huwaija district yesterday. It's now been confirmed that they swept 30-40km (18-24 miles) south-west of Kirkuk City liberating the villages of Sakhra, Wadi Naft and Sada as they went. In the is effort the Peshmerga we assisted by 4 coalition air-strikes that destroyed multiple fighting positions, ground units and vehicles. 10 Peshmerga lost their lives in the operation including 3 Iranian-Kurdish volunteers while 100 ISIL fighters were confirmed killed.
Seemingly in response to the Kurdish operations south-west of Kirkuk ISIL overnight launched an attack on the Peshmerga front-line 30km (18 miles) from the regional capital of Arbil. After several hours of fighting this attack was repulsed at the cost of one Peshmerga dead and another wounded. There is as yet no word on ISIL casualties but several of their armoured vehicles were destroyed.
Also yesterday the ISF launched an operation against ISIL positions around Karma 8km (4.8 miles) north-east of Fallujah which itself is around 45km (27 miles) west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Here they were assisted by the coalition which carried out 3 air-strikes which destroyed two large ISIL ground units and several ISIL vehicles. The ISF estimate that 350 ISIL fighters were killed in the operation but that has not been confirmed.
17:45 on 10/3/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 21:32 to on 10/3/15 (UK date) to add;
Apparently the above needs padding so;
Today the Home Affairs select committee of the UK House of Commons has met to discuss those three girls who recently ran away from home to join ISIL. It's not that this received a lot of coverage in the western media but at one point I realised that if you flicked channels really quickly you could see what had been shown live on BBC News repeated on Sky News and then again on CNN International.
The meeting actually had three stages with the families of the missing girls (henceforth known as; "The Sultanas") giving evidence followed by representatives of London's Metropolitan Police and the UK Ambassador for Turkey.
I found the sequence involving the Sultanas particularly unedifying not least because the chair of the committee Keith Vaz was in a particularly stroppy mood. At one point he demanded that the person with the cough left the chamber because they were making it hard to concentrate.
Mainly though I found this sequence unpleasant because it was essentially a group of MP's demanding that the teenage older sister and elderly father of Sahima Begum explain everything that was wrong with the UK's counter-terrorism legislation with specific reference to Jihadists wishing to join ISIL. Their only response they could reasonably come up with to all this was;
"We don't know. Two months ago we'd never had to think about it. This ISIL b*llocks of establishing the Levant to bring about the apocalyptic war between Sunnis and Shias doesn't normally come up at Mosque!!"
The person I choose to blame for all this is the lawyer Tasnime Akunjee who seems to have decided that he is representing all of the Sultanas. Coming very much from the "If there's blame there's a claim" school of law Akunjee has decided that it is the police were at fault for not realising that 3 girls who their families and school didn't realise were going to run away to join ISIL were going to run away to join ISIL. Mr Akunjee of course also objects to the polices attempts to speak to either the girl's families,the girl's school or in fact any Muslim.
In short Mr Akunjee is a sh*t lawyer. However I will concede that the police should probably have sent their letter directly to the Sultanas parents rather then handing it to the school for the standard "letter home" routine. This is though a non-standard situation and we are all learning.
I am though rather disappointed that despite everyone rushing to cover the Sultanas evidence no-one found the time to cover the Turkish Ambassador's evidence. After all with the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) still struggling to get Turkey to comply with it's resolutions on ISIL and Foreign Ministries across the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) struggling to get Turkey to comply with it's membership commitments it's a bit much demanding that the Met police achieve where so many others have failed.
Monday, 9 March 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 8, Week 2, Day 3.
It has been another bruising 24 hours for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Overnight the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) entered the village of Albu Ajil which sits around 1km (0.6 miles) to the south of the city of Tikrit and is effectively the gates of the city.
As a result the ISF's encirclement of Tikrit is now complete so after a short period in which they consolidate their position the ISF are now ready to strike at the heart of the city itself which sits some 150km (90 miles) of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. In response to the overnight gains by the ISF a convoy of around 40 ISIL vehicles were seen fleeing Tikrit for the al-Huwaija district which sits around 90km (54 miles) to the north-east of Tikrit and around 60km (36 miles) south-west of Kirkuk.
If ISIL are looking for safety they're unlikely to find it there because this morning the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga launched a fresh offensive to push south-west from Kirkuk into al-Huwaija district. This operation is ongoing but the Peshmerga appear to have advanced at least 20km (12 miles) and liberated the villages Sakhra and Wadi Naft. So far it is being reported that 10 Peshmerga lost their lives against an enemy force that is estimated to number around 2000 and at least 81 Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) have been defused.
Although it is not participating in the operation to liberate Tikrit the US-led coalition does appear to be providing a level of air-support to the Peshmerga operation. Overnight the coalition did cause some controversy by killing 30 in an air-strike against an ISIL oil refinery just outside Tel Abayd which effectively sits on Syria's northern border with Turkey.
Although it is believed that the overwhelming majority of those killed were ISIL fighters there is some concern that the dead includes civilians who were being forced by ISIL to work the refinery. As I feel I've explained hundreds of times before killing civilians in attacks on this type of dual use facility is counter-productive because it helps give the impression that the coalition is at war with the local population rather then trying to liberate them from their ISIL oppressors. The uniformed head of the US military General Dempsey himself reiterated that position saying on a visit to Baghdad today that carpet bombing ISIL held areas is not the answer.
The air-strike on the Tel Abayd oil refinery though seems to be indicative of the wider problem with the coalition - particularly the US' - approach towards this entire conflict. Tel Abayd is undoubtedly being used as ISIL's base of operations against the eastern front of the Kurdish Kobane Canton. As such you would expect it to be experiencing a high volume of coalition air-strikes to knock out the ISIL ammunition stores and troop staging areas located there.
However US President Barack Obama still seems absolutely terrified of the idea that the US-led coalition might actually succeed in defeating ISIL. Instead he seems intent on delaying any form of military action in order to buy time so Turkey can train more Sunni-Arab insurgents to go into Syria under the pre-text of fighting ISIL. There is of course a strong suspicion that Turkey is continuing to allow ISIL fighters to cross its border at Tel Abayd in order to attack the Kobane Canton from within Turkey.
As such you kind of get the impression that the only way the coalition can get permission to attack anything in Tel Abayd is by telling Obama that it's an oil refinery.
If Obama's apparent prohibition on fighting ISIL were to be lifted coalition air-strikes would also be very welcome around the town of Tel Tamr in the Kurdish Cizire Canton which has been under ISIL assault since Saturday (7/2/15). Amid the excitement over Tikrit and Kirkuk I am still struggling to get information about how that battle is going. However the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have confirmed that the first female foreign fighter to die in the conflict was killed in fighting around Tel Tamr. She has been named as Ivana Hoffman - a 19 year old German/South African dual national.
I have also been thinking more about the Canadian Special Forces soldier who was killed in a friendly fire incident involving the Peshmerga in northern Iraq. Although there is no dispute that this was the result of a simple mis-communication as he approached a Peshmerga observation post he and his team was inspecting as part of the training mission it does raise questions about the type of training that the coalition is providing to the Peshmerga. While I don't have any particular inside information the presence of special forces troops suggests that the main focus of the training is on sophisticated counter-insurgency/terrorism operations.
If you look back at the Peshmerga's history they were really formed as an insurgent force to fight Saddam Hussein at the end of the 1990-91 Gulf War. They reprised this role at the start of the Iraq war in 2003 helping the US to attack Saddam's forces from the north. After the fall of Saddam the Peshmerga received lots of counter-terrorist training to help protect the Kurdish region from Islamist insurgents. With the recent all hands call to fight ISIL some people who were previously involved in the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) have undoubtedly now joined up with the Peshmerga. According to Turkey and therefore the US and the EU the PKK is itself a terrorist organisation.
As such I think it is fair to assume that there is probably very little that the Peshmerga do not know about counter-insurgency/terrorism tactics and they could probably teach the special forces a trick or two. However they seem less capable at some of the more traditional military skills such as the drills that allow people to stay sharp and alert during long and tedious guard duties at observation towers.
Therefore it might be worth considering shifting the focus of the training the Peshmerga are given towards the less glamorous but essential basics. The UK seem to be moving in this direction with the announcement over the weekend that bomb disposal teams will now be made part of its training mission.
18:00 on 9/3/15 (UK date).
As a result the ISF's encirclement of Tikrit is now complete so after a short period in which they consolidate their position the ISF are now ready to strike at the heart of the city itself which sits some 150km (90 miles) of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. In response to the overnight gains by the ISF a convoy of around 40 ISIL vehicles were seen fleeing Tikrit for the al-Huwaija district which sits around 90km (54 miles) to the north-east of Tikrit and around 60km (36 miles) south-west of Kirkuk.
If ISIL are looking for safety they're unlikely to find it there because this morning the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga launched a fresh offensive to push south-west from Kirkuk into al-Huwaija district. This operation is ongoing but the Peshmerga appear to have advanced at least 20km (12 miles) and liberated the villages Sakhra and Wadi Naft. So far it is being reported that 10 Peshmerga lost their lives against an enemy force that is estimated to number around 2000 and at least 81 Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) have been defused.
Although it is not participating in the operation to liberate Tikrit the US-led coalition does appear to be providing a level of air-support to the Peshmerga operation. Overnight the coalition did cause some controversy by killing 30 in an air-strike against an ISIL oil refinery just outside Tel Abayd which effectively sits on Syria's northern border with Turkey.
Although it is believed that the overwhelming majority of those killed were ISIL fighters there is some concern that the dead includes civilians who were being forced by ISIL to work the refinery. As I feel I've explained hundreds of times before killing civilians in attacks on this type of dual use facility is counter-productive because it helps give the impression that the coalition is at war with the local population rather then trying to liberate them from their ISIL oppressors. The uniformed head of the US military General Dempsey himself reiterated that position saying on a visit to Baghdad today that carpet bombing ISIL held areas is not the answer.
The air-strike on the Tel Abayd oil refinery though seems to be indicative of the wider problem with the coalition - particularly the US' - approach towards this entire conflict. Tel Abayd is undoubtedly being used as ISIL's base of operations against the eastern front of the Kurdish Kobane Canton. As such you would expect it to be experiencing a high volume of coalition air-strikes to knock out the ISIL ammunition stores and troop staging areas located there.
However US President Barack Obama still seems absolutely terrified of the idea that the US-led coalition might actually succeed in defeating ISIL. Instead he seems intent on delaying any form of military action in order to buy time so Turkey can train more Sunni-Arab insurgents to go into Syria under the pre-text of fighting ISIL. There is of course a strong suspicion that Turkey is continuing to allow ISIL fighters to cross its border at Tel Abayd in order to attack the Kobane Canton from within Turkey.
As such you kind of get the impression that the only way the coalition can get permission to attack anything in Tel Abayd is by telling Obama that it's an oil refinery.
If Obama's apparent prohibition on fighting ISIL were to be lifted coalition air-strikes would also be very welcome around the town of Tel Tamr in the Kurdish Cizire Canton which has been under ISIL assault since Saturday (7/2/15). Amid the excitement over Tikrit and Kirkuk I am still struggling to get information about how that battle is going. However the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have confirmed that the first female foreign fighter to die in the conflict was killed in fighting around Tel Tamr. She has been named as Ivana Hoffman - a 19 year old German/South African dual national.
I have also been thinking more about the Canadian Special Forces soldier who was killed in a friendly fire incident involving the Peshmerga in northern Iraq. Although there is no dispute that this was the result of a simple mis-communication as he approached a Peshmerga observation post he and his team was inspecting as part of the training mission it does raise questions about the type of training that the coalition is providing to the Peshmerga. While I don't have any particular inside information the presence of special forces troops suggests that the main focus of the training is on sophisticated counter-insurgency/terrorism operations.
If you look back at the Peshmerga's history they were really formed as an insurgent force to fight Saddam Hussein at the end of the 1990-91 Gulf War. They reprised this role at the start of the Iraq war in 2003 helping the US to attack Saddam's forces from the north. After the fall of Saddam the Peshmerga received lots of counter-terrorist training to help protect the Kurdish region from Islamist insurgents. With the recent all hands call to fight ISIL some people who were previously involved in the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) have undoubtedly now joined up with the Peshmerga. According to Turkey and therefore the US and the EU the PKK is itself a terrorist organisation.
As such I think it is fair to assume that there is probably very little that the Peshmerga do not know about counter-insurgency/terrorism tactics and they could probably teach the special forces a trick or two. However they seem less capable at some of the more traditional military skills such as the drills that allow people to stay sharp and alert during long and tedious guard duties at observation towers.
Therefore it might be worth considering shifting the focus of the training the Peshmerga are given towards the less glamorous but essential basics. The UK seem to be moving in this direction with the announcement over the weekend that bomb disposal teams will now be made part of its training mission.
18:00 on 9/3/15 (UK date).
Sunday, 8 March 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 8, Week 2, Day 2.
In the roughly 24 hours since my last post on the subject the operation to encircle and then liberate the city of Tikrit in Iraq's Salah al-Din province has continued. However all that has really happened in that time is that a group of around 40 fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) decided that it wasn't honourable to die in jihad after all and surrendered to the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).
Away from Tikrit ISIL have actually continued to suffer a series of defeats. The most significant of these has come at the town of Al-Baghdadi which is around 200km (120 miles) north-west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad in Anbar province. You may remember that back in mid-February (12/2/15) ISIL swept into al-Baghdadi and used it as a springboard to launch attacks on the Ain al-Asad airbase which sits just 5km (3 miles) away and is home to some 300 US Marines.
Since then it has been a priority to halt ISIL's operations in the area and re-liberate al-Baghdadi in order to reassure the Sunni tribes that dominate Anbar province that the Iraqi government and the US-led coalition are capable of defending them from ISIL.
On around February 25th (25/2/15) the ISF launched an operation to do just that and eventually the US-led coalition decided to support that operation with air-strikes. On Friday (6/3/15) that operation was declared a success with ISIL being not only forced from al-Baghdadi but from a half dozen villages to the north-west and several bridges across the Euphrates River that they had held since September 2014. As a result not only has al-Baghdadi been liberated from ISIL but ISIL have been forced from the area around al-Baghdadi and the strategically important city of Haditha which sits around 30km (18 miles) to the north-west significantly reducing their ability to threaten either area in the future.
Within Syria the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have continued their operations to fully liberate the Kobane Canton from ISIL. On Thursday (5/3/15) this took them to the very western edge of the canton with an operation to liberate the villages of Shiukh and Nasiri which sit on the banks of that natural defensive barrier of the Euphrates River. As YPG forces began their liberation of the area ISIL fighters apparently fled across the river and blew up the bridge behind them.
Similarly to the east the YPG are now operating close to the traditional border of the canton in the village of Bredirxane which is around 50km (30 miles) from Kobane City itself. There is though concern that ISIL are still able to launch attacks against YPG positions with a strong suspicion that they being able to slip across the border with Turkey at the town of Tel Abayd to launch attacks on the canton from the north.
The YPG also appear to have secured the southern front of the canton although ISIL are still able to mount hit-and-run attacks against their positions. Despite assistance from coalition air-strikes these operations do not come without a price which three YPG fighters being killed in just the battles I've mentioned. In the same 24 hour period ISIL were confirmed to have lost 14 fighters.
With the Kobane Canton effectively lost to them ISIL now seem to be concentrating extracting their revenge against the YPG in the Cizire Canton which borders Iraq. Having lost control of the area between the town of Tel Hamees and the Iraqi border last Friday (27/2/15) ISIL yesterday launched an attempt to capture the Tel Tamr which sits to the north-west of the city of Hasakah which sits at the southern edge of the canton. The objective being to cut a key YPG supply route between the contested city and the YPG held villages surrounding it. At the time of writing there is little information of how the battle is progressing but the YPG still appear to be in control of Tel Tamr despite being significant casualties on both sides.
Unrelated to fighting with ISIL one member of Canadian special forces was killed and three others were wounded in a friendly fire incident with the Kurdish Peshmerga they were training in the village of Bashiq on the Kurdish front-line in northern Iraq. What appears to have happened is that the Canadian troops failed to properly identify themselves after arrive unannounced at an observation post so this seems to be a case of simple mis-communication rather then anything malicious.
It does though further serve as a reminder that war is messy and chaotic so sending troops into a war-zone even on a training mission is inherently dangerous. Therefore it should only be done when there is a clear objective to be achieved rather then as a stalling tactic.
In the past week ISIL have turned their destructive urges on the ancient Assyrian cities of Nimrud, 20km (12 miles) south of Mosul and Khorsibad, 15km (9 miles) north of Mosul in northern Iraq. In response to the destruction of Nimrud the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) published a stinging attack on ISIL declaring the destruction of the city a war crime.
At first I was shocked that UNESCO was outraged by the destruction of some ancient ruins but not at ISIL's destruction of contemporary people. I then remembered that UNESCO only have a remit to comment on educational, scientific and cultural issues so this was actually only their first opportunity to comment on ISIL reign of terror.
I also think that UNESCO were quite correct to label ISIL's actions a war crime and I think they could have gone further by labelling it a crime against humanity specifically the offence of ethnic cleansing. Although the killing of large numbers of people is considered the most serious example ethnic cleansing actually covers all attempts to eradicate an ethnic group. Destroying their cultural history is most certainly an example of this.
Last night the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram released an audio message pledging allegiance to ISIL. Boko Haram's current leader Abubakar Shekau is what a you might term "a bit of a character." For example he insists that he is Mohammed Yusuf who founded Boko Haram. We all know that Yusuf was killed in an air-strike back in 2009 and that Shekau is an impostor. However it doesn't seem clear that Shekau knows that he is an impostor and the term "Delusional Schizophrenia" has been used around him before.
Therefore this announcement seems very clearly intended to embarrass US President Barack Obama who at the time was preparing to mark the 50th anniversary to the voting rights march in Selma that was made all the more infamous by the recent Oscars controversy.
18:00 on 8/3/15 (UK date).
Away from Tikrit ISIL have actually continued to suffer a series of defeats. The most significant of these has come at the town of Al-Baghdadi which is around 200km (120 miles) north-west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad in Anbar province. You may remember that back in mid-February (12/2/15) ISIL swept into al-Baghdadi and used it as a springboard to launch attacks on the Ain al-Asad airbase which sits just 5km (3 miles) away and is home to some 300 US Marines.
Since then it has been a priority to halt ISIL's operations in the area and re-liberate al-Baghdadi in order to reassure the Sunni tribes that dominate Anbar province that the Iraqi government and the US-led coalition are capable of defending them from ISIL.
On around February 25th (25/2/15) the ISF launched an operation to do just that and eventually the US-led coalition decided to support that operation with air-strikes. On Friday (6/3/15) that operation was declared a success with ISIL being not only forced from al-Baghdadi but from a half dozen villages to the north-west and several bridges across the Euphrates River that they had held since September 2014. As a result not only has al-Baghdadi been liberated from ISIL but ISIL have been forced from the area around al-Baghdadi and the strategically important city of Haditha which sits around 30km (18 miles) to the north-west significantly reducing their ability to threaten either area in the future.
Within Syria the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have continued their operations to fully liberate the Kobane Canton from ISIL. On Thursday (5/3/15) this took them to the very western edge of the canton with an operation to liberate the villages of Shiukh and Nasiri which sit on the banks of that natural defensive barrier of the Euphrates River. As YPG forces began their liberation of the area ISIL fighters apparently fled across the river and blew up the bridge behind them.
Similarly to the east the YPG are now operating close to the traditional border of the canton in the village of Bredirxane which is around 50km (30 miles) from Kobane City itself. There is though concern that ISIL are still able to launch attacks against YPG positions with a strong suspicion that they being able to slip across the border with Turkey at the town of Tel Abayd to launch attacks on the canton from the north.
The YPG also appear to have secured the southern front of the canton although ISIL are still able to mount hit-and-run attacks against their positions. Despite assistance from coalition air-strikes these operations do not come without a price which three YPG fighters being killed in just the battles I've mentioned. In the same 24 hour period ISIL were confirmed to have lost 14 fighters.
With the Kobane Canton effectively lost to them ISIL now seem to be concentrating extracting their revenge against the YPG in the Cizire Canton which borders Iraq. Having lost control of the area between the town of Tel Hamees and the Iraqi border last Friday (27/2/15) ISIL yesterday launched an attempt to capture the Tel Tamr which sits to the north-west of the city of Hasakah which sits at the southern edge of the canton. The objective being to cut a key YPG supply route between the contested city and the YPG held villages surrounding it. At the time of writing there is little information of how the battle is progressing but the YPG still appear to be in control of Tel Tamr despite being significant casualties on both sides.
Unrelated to fighting with ISIL one member of Canadian special forces was killed and three others were wounded in a friendly fire incident with the Kurdish Peshmerga they were training in the village of Bashiq on the Kurdish front-line in northern Iraq. What appears to have happened is that the Canadian troops failed to properly identify themselves after arrive unannounced at an observation post so this seems to be a case of simple mis-communication rather then anything malicious.
It does though further serve as a reminder that war is messy and chaotic so sending troops into a war-zone even on a training mission is inherently dangerous. Therefore it should only be done when there is a clear objective to be achieved rather then as a stalling tactic.
In the past week ISIL have turned their destructive urges on the ancient Assyrian cities of Nimrud, 20km (12 miles) south of Mosul and Khorsibad, 15km (9 miles) north of Mosul in northern Iraq. In response to the destruction of Nimrud the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) published a stinging attack on ISIL declaring the destruction of the city a war crime.
At first I was shocked that UNESCO was outraged by the destruction of some ancient ruins but not at ISIL's destruction of contemporary people. I then remembered that UNESCO only have a remit to comment on educational, scientific and cultural issues so this was actually only their first opportunity to comment on ISIL reign of terror.
I also think that UNESCO were quite correct to label ISIL's actions a war crime and I think they could have gone further by labelling it a crime against humanity specifically the offence of ethnic cleansing. Although the killing of large numbers of people is considered the most serious example ethnic cleansing actually covers all attempts to eradicate an ethnic group. Destroying their cultural history is most certainly an example of this.
Last night the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram released an audio message pledging allegiance to ISIL. Boko Haram's current leader Abubakar Shekau is what a you might term "a bit of a character." For example he insists that he is Mohammed Yusuf who founded Boko Haram. We all know that Yusuf was killed in an air-strike back in 2009 and that Shekau is an impostor. However it doesn't seem clear that Shekau knows that he is an impostor and the term "Delusional Schizophrenia" has been used around him before.
Therefore this announcement seems very clearly intended to embarrass US President Barack Obama who at the time was preparing to mark the 50th anniversary to the voting rights march in Selma that was made all the more infamous by the recent Oscars controversy.
18:00 on 8/3/15 (UK date).
Saturday, 7 March 2015
Villa Are Out of the Cup Then.
This weekend the UK football league has taken a bit of a break to make way for the quarter-finals of the Football Association (FA) Cup. The big game of the day saw Aston Villa from the Aston area of Birmingham take on West Bromwich Albion from the West Bromwich area of Birmingham. The fans of these two teams do not like each other at all and to make matters worse both sides have been having a terrible season and really need a win.
The first half of the match was terrible and marked out only by the referee - Anthony Taylor - complete failure to mark his authority on the players. After half-time Villa were much more fired up and scored through a pretty good Fabian Delph goal in the 51st minute. Delph celebrated by running towards the Villa fans at the Holt end of the ground and some of the fans ran onto the pitch to celebrate with him. This was all good natured but is against the rules so is a bit of a warning sign that the police and stewards need to act to keep a lid on the situation.
With West Brom being forced to chase the game for an equaliser the match then livened up a bit until a very strange moment occurred in the 79th minute. West Brom's #5 Yacob and Villa's #7 Bacuna both rushed into challenge for a loose ball. At the last minute Yacob stopped himself but Bacuna continued and slid in on him two footed smashing Yacob in the shins as he was standing still. This was clearly a dangerous challenge and should have earned Bacuna a yellow card if not a straight red card. Having already had a bit of backchat from Yacob earlier in the game the referee Taylor saw this very differently and showed Yacob his second yellow card meaning he got a red card and was sent off.
Having lost a man in dubious circumstances West Brom weren't really able to compete from then on and Sinclair put Villa 2-0 up on 85 minutes. Again he ran towards the Holt end and again a small number of Villa fans ran onto the pitch to celebrate. By this point it had become very clear that the police and stewards were completely loosing control of both the Holt end and the Doug Ellis stand. However the police and stewards continued to concentrate all their resources on the fans in North Stand and the opposite end of the stadium.
If Villa's Chief Steward hadn't realised his mistake by this point then the referee Taylor certainly had and gave Villa's Grealish his second yellow card and sent him off in the 92nd (90+5) minute for the offence of what appeared to be falling over. Despite the referee's attempt to overturn Villa's unfair advantage with just 3 minutes left and 2 goals down the game was already over for West Brom.
In roughly the 93rd minute Villa fans invaded the pitch en masse from the Holt end and parts of the Doug Ellis stand forcing the game to be stopped for around 2 minutes. After the delay the match re-started for all of a minute before there was another pitch invasion prompting the referee to end the game.
As the final whistle blew even more Villa fans invaded the pitch and were joined by the West Brom fans. By the sounds of things the police are still trying to control the situation as a I write.
This is a clear example of Aston Villa completely failing to control their fans by not taking appropriate action despite there being very clear warning signs. As such the FA will have to punish them very harshly. Considering the way Taylor's shambolic refereeing robbed West Brom of a sporting chance in the game expelling Villa from the tournament may well be the suitable punishment.
Oh and just to make things interesting Aston Villa and West Brom are playing each other again in the league on Monday.
20:40 on 7/3/15 (UK date).
The first half of the match was terrible and marked out only by the referee - Anthony Taylor - complete failure to mark his authority on the players. After half-time Villa were much more fired up and scored through a pretty good Fabian Delph goal in the 51st minute. Delph celebrated by running towards the Villa fans at the Holt end of the ground and some of the fans ran onto the pitch to celebrate with him. This was all good natured but is against the rules so is a bit of a warning sign that the police and stewards need to act to keep a lid on the situation.
With West Brom being forced to chase the game for an equaliser the match then livened up a bit until a very strange moment occurred in the 79th minute. West Brom's #5 Yacob and Villa's #7 Bacuna both rushed into challenge for a loose ball. At the last minute Yacob stopped himself but Bacuna continued and slid in on him two footed smashing Yacob in the shins as he was standing still. This was clearly a dangerous challenge and should have earned Bacuna a yellow card if not a straight red card. Having already had a bit of backchat from Yacob earlier in the game the referee Taylor saw this very differently and showed Yacob his second yellow card meaning he got a red card and was sent off.
Having lost a man in dubious circumstances West Brom weren't really able to compete from then on and Sinclair put Villa 2-0 up on 85 minutes. Again he ran towards the Holt end and again a small number of Villa fans ran onto the pitch to celebrate. By this point it had become very clear that the police and stewards were completely loosing control of both the Holt end and the Doug Ellis stand. However the police and stewards continued to concentrate all their resources on the fans in North Stand and the opposite end of the stadium.
If Villa's Chief Steward hadn't realised his mistake by this point then the referee Taylor certainly had and gave Villa's Grealish his second yellow card and sent him off in the 92nd (90+5) minute for the offence of what appeared to be falling over. Despite the referee's attempt to overturn Villa's unfair advantage with just 3 minutes left and 2 goals down the game was already over for West Brom.
In roughly the 93rd minute Villa fans invaded the pitch en masse from the Holt end and parts of the Doug Ellis stand forcing the game to be stopped for around 2 minutes. After the delay the match re-started for all of a minute before there was another pitch invasion prompting the referee to end the game.
As the final whistle blew even more Villa fans invaded the pitch and were joined by the West Brom fans. By the sounds of things the police are still trying to control the situation as a I write.
This is a clear example of Aston Villa completely failing to control their fans by not taking appropriate action despite there being very clear warning signs. As such the FA will have to punish them very harshly. Considering the way Taylor's shambolic refereeing robbed West Brom of a sporting chance in the game expelling Villa from the tournament may well be the suitable punishment.
Oh and just to make things interesting Aston Villa and West Brom are playing each other again in the league on Monday.
20:40 on 7/3/15 (UK date).
Operation Featherweight: Month 8, Week 2, Day 1.
On Monday (2/3/15) the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) launched an operation to liberate the city of Tikrit - 150km (90 miles) north of the capital Baghdad - from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The first phase of this operation has involved moving Iraqi forces into position to the north, west and south of the city. The Tigris river to the east of course provides a natural barrier cutting Tikrit off.
The operations to the north and the west have been swift and successful with the Iraqi forces now in position to launch an assault on the city itself. However they are now really waiting for the operation to the south to catch up. Yesterday (6/3/15) ISF entered the town of Al-Dour which sits around 13km (8 miles) to the south of Tikrit. Progress on this southern front has been slowed right down by a vast number of landmines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's). I think on one 8km (5 miles) stretch of road leading into Al-Dour the ISF had to stop every 80 metres (87 yards) to clear explosives.
Although I don't want to detract from the operation because both sides are sustaining casualties amid artillery and sniper fire and ISIL on Thursday (5/3/15) set fire to the Ajeel oilfields to provide a smoke screen the battle for Tikrit has not yet seen the type of high intensity fighting we saw in say Kobane. Instead ISIL seem focused on slowing down the ISF's advance in order to buy them time to slip away from Tikrit.
On Monday when the operation began there were reports of the senior ISIL leadership in Tikrit immediately fleeing towards Mosul - 180km (108 miles) to the north. In the last few days there have also been reports of intercepted radio messages instructing Iraqi ISIL members in and around Tikrit to shave off their Islamist beards, dump their military equipment and melt away into the local population many of whom have begun to leave Tikrit in preparation for the liberation operation on the instructions of the ISF.
Therefore it seems to me that although a contingent of foreign fighters which remains in Tikrit will try and make a fight of it ISIL intends to let Tikrit fall quite easily. Then once the liberation operation has been completed and ISF's attention has shifted to other towns and cities ISIL will launch a traditional type insurgency against Tikrit with suicide bombings and gun attacks against ISF personnel within the city. As with in Egypt the purpose of these attacks will be to provoke the security forces into a violent response against the local population. ISIL operatives in the area will then try and claim this response as Shia oppression in the hope of leading a Sunni rebellion which will again allow ISIL to take control of the city.
As such it is vitally important that the Iraqi forces keep the local residents of Tikrit on their side both during the liberation operation and its aftermath. For example they will need help from the local residents to identify ISIL fighters who have melted into the background in the hope of evading capture.
This brings me on to perhaps the only aspect of the operation that the western media seem interested in - the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) which is an umbrella of Shia militias that make up part of the Iraqi forces aiming to liberate Tikrit. As militias are rarely as disciplined as a professional army and in combat situations people's tempers often boil over there is some concern that in the past the PMF have carried out revenge attacks against Sunni civilians in areas they have liberated from ISIL. It must be said though that the accusations against the PMF have been overstated.
For example the only evidence of wrongdoing that has been uncovered during the Tikrit operation is a video of PMF fighters summarily executing an ISIL fighter they'd captured. However immediately before the shooting the majority of the PMF fighters are seen trying to protect the prisoner and immediately after the shooting they are seen remonstrating with the individual who carried out the killing.
The PMF and all of the ISF will though need to be exceptionally careful in the way they treat Sunnis from now on because ISIL have already claimed that the presence of Shia troops in the battle of Tikrit is a sign that the apocalyptic war between Sunnis and Shias that they crave has already begun. Mind you ISIL then went on to claim that the battle of Tikrit is already over, they won and all the defeated Shia soldiers have been buried in mass graves.
The reason why the western media and the US in particular has been so critical of the PMF is that somewhere amongst all the - frankly - bullsh*t surrounding the insurgency in Syria the US administration has for some reason fully accepted the Saudi Whabbist interpretation of Islam as the one true version of Islam and considers all Shias as infidels and enemies. The US has also made the mistake of viewing all Shias as Iranians who are considered Saudi Arabia's mortal enemy. As a result the US' role in this now seven month operation has been to dither and delay in the hope of putting all Shia Arabs in the region under intense pressure.
Funnily enough Iraq's Shia-Arabs have not been so happy to sit back and watch as ISIL lay waste to their country so have started looking away from the US towards anyone who is actually prepared to defeat ISIL including their Persian neighbour Iran. As such it is Iran rather then the US-led coalition that is playing the supporting role in the Tikrit operation. Although that level of Iranian support is relatively small limited only really to tactical advice the US is not at all happy about the Tikrit operation.
In fact given the effort they seem to be putting into smearing it I think secretly the US would like to see the Tikrit operation fail rather then having it turn into an example of how easy it is for the Iraqis to force ISIL from territory they hold.
16:30 on 7/3/15 (UK date).
The operations to the north and the west have been swift and successful with the Iraqi forces now in position to launch an assault on the city itself. However they are now really waiting for the operation to the south to catch up. Yesterday (6/3/15) ISF entered the town of Al-Dour which sits around 13km (8 miles) to the south of Tikrit. Progress on this southern front has been slowed right down by a vast number of landmines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's). I think on one 8km (5 miles) stretch of road leading into Al-Dour the ISF had to stop every 80 metres (87 yards) to clear explosives.
Although I don't want to detract from the operation because both sides are sustaining casualties amid artillery and sniper fire and ISIL on Thursday (5/3/15) set fire to the Ajeel oilfields to provide a smoke screen the battle for Tikrit has not yet seen the type of high intensity fighting we saw in say Kobane. Instead ISIL seem focused on slowing down the ISF's advance in order to buy them time to slip away from Tikrit.
On Monday when the operation began there were reports of the senior ISIL leadership in Tikrit immediately fleeing towards Mosul - 180km (108 miles) to the north. In the last few days there have also been reports of intercepted radio messages instructing Iraqi ISIL members in and around Tikrit to shave off their Islamist beards, dump their military equipment and melt away into the local population many of whom have begun to leave Tikrit in preparation for the liberation operation on the instructions of the ISF.
Therefore it seems to me that although a contingent of foreign fighters which remains in Tikrit will try and make a fight of it ISIL intends to let Tikrit fall quite easily. Then once the liberation operation has been completed and ISF's attention has shifted to other towns and cities ISIL will launch a traditional type insurgency against Tikrit with suicide bombings and gun attacks against ISF personnel within the city. As with in Egypt the purpose of these attacks will be to provoke the security forces into a violent response against the local population. ISIL operatives in the area will then try and claim this response as Shia oppression in the hope of leading a Sunni rebellion which will again allow ISIL to take control of the city.
As such it is vitally important that the Iraqi forces keep the local residents of Tikrit on their side both during the liberation operation and its aftermath. For example they will need help from the local residents to identify ISIL fighters who have melted into the background in the hope of evading capture.
This brings me on to perhaps the only aspect of the operation that the western media seem interested in - the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) which is an umbrella of Shia militias that make up part of the Iraqi forces aiming to liberate Tikrit. As militias are rarely as disciplined as a professional army and in combat situations people's tempers often boil over there is some concern that in the past the PMF have carried out revenge attacks against Sunni civilians in areas they have liberated from ISIL. It must be said though that the accusations against the PMF have been overstated.
For example the only evidence of wrongdoing that has been uncovered during the Tikrit operation is a video of PMF fighters summarily executing an ISIL fighter they'd captured. However immediately before the shooting the majority of the PMF fighters are seen trying to protect the prisoner and immediately after the shooting they are seen remonstrating with the individual who carried out the killing.
The PMF and all of the ISF will though need to be exceptionally careful in the way they treat Sunnis from now on because ISIL have already claimed that the presence of Shia troops in the battle of Tikrit is a sign that the apocalyptic war between Sunnis and Shias that they crave has already begun. Mind you ISIL then went on to claim that the battle of Tikrit is already over, they won and all the defeated Shia soldiers have been buried in mass graves.
The reason why the western media and the US in particular has been so critical of the PMF is that somewhere amongst all the - frankly - bullsh*t surrounding the insurgency in Syria the US administration has for some reason fully accepted the Saudi Whabbist interpretation of Islam as the one true version of Islam and considers all Shias as infidels and enemies. The US has also made the mistake of viewing all Shias as Iranians who are considered Saudi Arabia's mortal enemy. As a result the US' role in this now seven month operation has been to dither and delay in the hope of putting all Shia Arabs in the region under intense pressure.
Funnily enough Iraq's Shia-Arabs have not been so happy to sit back and watch as ISIL lay waste to their country so have started looking away from the US towards anyone who is actually prepared to defeat ISIL including their Persian neighbour Iran. As such it is Iran rather then the US-led coalition that is playing the supporting role in the Tikrit operation. Although that level of Iranian support is relatively small limited only really to tactical advice the US is not at all happy about the Tikrit operation.
In fact given the effort they seem to be putting into smearing it I think secretly the US would like to see the Tikrit operation fail rather then having it turn into an example of how easy it is for the Iraqis to force ISIL from territory they hold.
16:30 on 7/3/15 (UK date).
Thursday, 5 March 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 8, Week 1, Day 6.
I should probably start by explaining that the Kurdish Cizire Canton which I keep referring to is located in the north-eastern Al-Hasakah province of Syria. However the canton only covers about half of the province with the other half being controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Therefore operationally it makes more sense for me to think in terms of the canton rather then the entire province.
The current Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga combined operation in the Cizire Canton has been hugely successful having succeeded in liberating the area between the border with Iraq and the former ISIL stronghold of Tal Hamis. However these gains have come at a price with the combined Kurdish forces sustaining casualties at a higher rate then they did during the entire 134 day battle for the city of Kobane.
The main reason for this is that much of the fighting in Cizire has taken place in the open countryside rather then in urban streets. Although urban warfare is slow and nasty all the buildings do offer a degree of protection. In a rural setting this protection is lost with snipers being able to operate over much greater distances and it being easier to use heavy weapons such as artillery and mortars. Another factor is that Cizire has long been the most secure of the Kurdish cantons meaning that it has long been used as a base for a lot the YPG's training. As a result many of the fighters who have been involved in the recent operations lack the experience of many of the fighters in places like Kobane with this often being their first experience of combat.
With Cizire being the YPG's training base it is also where the 100 or so foreigners who have gone to fight alongside them are located. Since the operation in Cizire has begun more and more of these foreigners have found themselves in the thick of it on the front-line. So on February 24th (24/2/15) an Australian whose been identified as Ashley Johnston was killed in battle and on March 2nd (2/3/15) a British/Greek dual national by the name of Konstandinos Erik Scurfield was also killed.
Although I am immensely proud of anyone who is prepared to fight ISIL I am a little concerned about westerners being seen to take over. Within both Iraq and Syria there is a degree of tension between the Arabs and the Kurds with Arabs sometimes tending to view the Kurds as foreigners despite them being indigenous to the region. Therefore if lots of foreign fighters flood to fight alongside the Kurds it risks further alienating them for the Arabs who are also fighting ISIL. Creating this sort of division between allies will of course only play into ISIL's hands.
I must say though that the number of foreigners who have travelled to fight alongside the Kurds is so absolutely tiny it's not really possible to display it as a percentage. Unlike the westerners who go to fight alongside ISIL the people who have gone to assist the Kurds have not done so out of any great religious or ideological reason. Instead they've simply seen the genocide that ISIL have unleashed on the Kurds and most everybody else and decided to use the skills they have to stop it. Scurfield for example was a former Royal Marine with a great deal of military experience.
In fact I'm rather disappointed that the western governments who have already joined the coalition against ISIL are not doing more to help train and equip the YPG. After all while they may be a highly effectively guerrilla force it's clear that the YPG do need some help with the more traditional aspects of soldiering such as holding vast areas of open territory. Therefore I think it might be better for westerners without military experience to show their opposition to ISIL by lobbying their governments for more action and donating money rather then joining up with the YPG in the hope of a cheap thrill.
The situation within the Cizire Canton is actually rather an interesting one because back at the start of 2014 when ISIL made their big push into Iraq the YPG remained in control of most of the canton as ISIL largely by-passed it. However having established themselves in Iraq ISIL have begun to attack Cizire from across the border with Iraq. This recent operation has largely been focused on re-establishing the border between Iraq and the canton so ISIL are only able to attack from the south-west.
The big problem in re-establishing the Syria/Iraq border has been the situation around the city of Sinjar/Shingal on the Iraq side of the border. Although this area was liberated from ISIL in December of 2014 the city itself and the Nineveh plains beyond it are heavily mined with and littered with Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's). As they lack the expertise to clear these minefields the Peshmerga have been unable to properly establish themselves around Shingal in order to stop ISIL launching attacks across the border into Cizire. It has also prevented the authorities from examining the series of mass graves that are in the area in a effort to allow ISIL's victims to be buried by their loved ones.
Therefore while there are still many priorities that require action despite this operation now being in its eighth month there needs to be an increased effort to help the Kurdish forces deal with all the landmines and IED's they're encountering. This could be done by the coalition adding it as an aspect of the military training they're already providing or by the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) taking up the task. Some of the large minefields could even be dealt with by the coalition carrying out air-strikes against them.
I think the mass graves themselves and the cost of dealing with them should certainly fall under the remit of the UN or the International Criminal Court (ICC) so that what are clearly crimes against humanity are properly documented.
The issue of landmines and IED's are also becoming an factor in the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) efforts to liberate Tikrit for ISIL. I will try and cover this in more detail tomorrow but the operation seems to be going better then I'd expected with ISIL seeming to flee rather then fight. I should point out though that the ISF are currently at the stage surrounding and securing all the routes in and out of Tikrit rather then having fully begun the operation to liberate the city itself.
This process is being slowed a huge number of landmines and IED's left behind by ISIL. I think in one 8km section of road to the north of Tikrit the ISF encountered some 100 IED's which works out at around 1 every 80 metres which obviously takes a very long time to work through.
17:50 on 5/3/15 (UK date).
The current Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga combined operation in the Cizire Canton has been hugely successful having succeeded in liberating the area between the border with Iraq and the former ISIL stronghold of Tal Hamis. However these gains have come at a price with the combined Kurdish forces sustaining casualties at a higher rate then they did during the entire 134 day battle for the city of Kobane.
The main reason for this is that much of the fighting in Cizire has taken place in the open countryside rather then in urban streets. Although urban warfare is slow and nasty all the buildings do offer a degree of protection. In a rural setting this protection is lost with snipers being able to operate over much greater distances and it being easier to use heavy weapons such as artillery and mortars. Another factor is that Cizire has long been the most secure of the Kurdish cantons meaning that it has long been used as a base for a lot the YPG's training. As a result many of the fighters who have been involved in the recent operations lack the experience of many of the fighters in places like Kobane with this often being their first experience of combat.
With Cizire being the YPG's training base it is also where the 100 or so foreigners who have gone to fight alongside them are located. Since the operation in Cizire has begun more and more of these foreigners have found themselves in the thick of it on the front-line. So on February 24th (24/2/15) an Australian whose been identified as Ashley Johnston was killed in battle and on March 2nd (2/3/15) a British/Greek dual national by the name of Konstandinos Erik Scurfield was also killed.
Although I am immensely proud of anyone who is prepared to fight ISIL I am a little concerned about westerners being seen to take over. Within both Iraq and Syria there is a degree of tension between the Arabs and the Kurds with Arabs sometimes tending to view the Kurds as foreigners despite them being indigenous to the region. Therefore if lots of foreign fighters flood to fight alongside the Kurds it risks further alienating them for the Arabs who are also fighting ISIL. Creating this sort of division between allies will of course only play into ISIL's hands.
I must say though that the number of foreigners who have travelled to fight alongside the Kurds is so absolutely tiny it's not really possible to display it as a percentage. Unlike the westerners who go to fight alongside ISIL the people who have gone to assist the Kurds have not done so out of any great religious or ideological reason. Instead they've simply seen the genocide that ISIL have unleashed on the Kurds and most everybody else and decided to use the skills they have to stop it. Scurfield for example was a former Royal Marine with a great deal of military experience.
In fact I'm rather disappointed that the western governments who have already joined the coalition against ISIL are not doing more to help train and equip the YPG. After all while they may be a highly effectively guerrilla force it's clear that the YPG do need some help with the more traditional aspects of soldiering such as holding vast areas of open territory. Therefore I think it might be better for westerners without military experience to show their opposition to ISIL by lobbying their governments for more action and donating money rather then joining up with the YPG in the hope of a cheap thrill.
The situation within the Cizire Canton is actually rather an interesting one because back at the start of 2014 when ISIL made their big push into Iraq the YPG remained in control of most of the canton as ISIL largely by-passed it. However having established themselves in Iraq ISIL have begun to attack Cizire from across the border with Iraq. This recent operation has largely been focused on re-establishing the border between Iraq and the canton so ISIL are only able to attack from the south-west.
The big problem in re-establishing the Syria/Iraq border has been the situation around the city of Sinjar/Shingal on the Iraq side of the border. Although this area was liberated from ISIL in December of 2014 the city itself and the Nineveh plains beyond it are heavily mined with and littered with Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's). As they lack the expertise to clear these minefields the Peshmerga have been unable to properly establish themselves around Shingal in order to stop ISIL launching attacks across the border into Cizire. It has also prevented the authorities from examining the series of mass graves that are in the area in a effort to allow ISIL's victims to be buried by their loved ones.
Therefore while there are still many priorities that require action despite this operation now being in its eighth month there needs to be an increased effort to help the Kurdish forces deal with all the landmines and IED's they're encountering. This could be done by the coalition adding it as an aspect of the military training they're already providing or by the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) taking up the task. Some of the large minefields could even be dealt with by the coalition carrying out air-strikes against them.
I think the mass graves themselves and the cost of dealing with them should certainly fall under the remit of the UN or the International Criminal Court (ICC) so that what are clearly crimes against humanity are properly documented.
The issue of landmines and IED's are also becoming an factor in the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) efforts to liberate Tikrit for ISIL. I will try and cover this in more detail tomorrow but the operation seems to be going better then I'd expected with ISIL seeming to flee rather then fight. I should point out though that the ISF are currently at the stage surrounding and securing all the routes in and out of Tikrit rather then having fully begun the operation to liberate the city itself.
This process is being slowed a huge number of landmines and IED's left behind by ISIL. I think in one 8km section of road to the north of Tikrit the ISF encountered some 100 IED's which works out at around 1 every 80 metres which obviously takes a very long time to work through.
17:50 on 5/3/15 (UK date).
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