On Saturday (20/9/14) 49 Turkish hostages who had been held by the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) since June were released by
their captors. Although it seems unlikely that a ransom was paid
Turkey's extremely close relationship with ISIL has led to fears that it
may have entered into some sort of agreement with the group that would
see the hostages released in return for Turkey refusing to allow
coalition aircraft to use its airbases in the fight against ISIL or
continuing to allow the flow of ISIL fighters and oil across its
territory.
Although I don't have any particular trust for the Turkish government
and President Erdogan in particular this suspicion does overlook one
simple fact - taking hostages is a lot more complicated then it sounds.
Once a group has taken people hostage it then has to feed them, house
them, guard them and generally keep them hidden in case they become the
targets of a rescue mission. This obviously takes up manpower and
resources and the larger the group the more resources it takes. This
group would have been particularly challenging because it included young
children who tend to what they like anyway and special forces soldiers
who require a lot of security to control. So once ISIL realised that
they weren't going be paid a ransom or win any other sort of concession
for their hostages they were probably quite happy to get rid of them. A
similar thing actually happened in the Golan Heights in southern Syria
where Al Nusra Front (ANF) took 45 Fijian soldiers attached to the
United Nations Disengagement Observer Forces (UNDOF) hostage only to
release them two weeks later. Fijian soldiers have a reputation for
being big men who require a lot of feeding.
One possible agreement the Turkish government may have reached with ISIL
is over the fate of the Kurds which Turkey has fought a civil war
against for 30 years. The Kurdish Peshmerga are currently humiliating
ISIL on the battlefields of Iraq and this has prompted ISIL to take
revenge by attacking Kurdish villages in northern Syria around the city
of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab (pop 45,000). This has prompted some 130,000
Syrian Kurds to try and flee into Turkey in recent days while some 300
Kurdish fighters have headed in the opposite direction to try and halt
ISIL's advance. This has prompted Turkey to suddenly discover that it
can control it's border with Syria and over the weekend it has deployed
police and troops to violently stop the flow of Kurds into and out of
Syria. Therefore it is possible that Turkey has secured the release of
its hostages by doing a deal with ISIL that will see it stop the Kurds
fleeing in order to allow ISIL to exterminate their mutual enemy.
This of course further highlights the stupidity of US President Obama's
plan to train and arm Arab insurgents in Syria to fight ISIL at the
expense of the Kurds. As we can all see the Kurds are currently fighting
ISIL in northern Syria while Arab insurgent groups like the Islamic
Front (IF) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are not and aren't really in a
position to do so. So if the US were to provide weapons and training to
the Kurds rather then the Arab groups it would speed up the defeat of
ISIL bringing the entire operation to a rapid conclusion. Also if the US
declines to help the Kurds then there is a risk that they may lose the
battle against ISIL in northern Syria. This will end up making the
operation all the more difficult by increasing the amount of territory
that ISIL holds while reducing the number of enemies it has has to fight
against. Also we should all now be well aware of the type of horrors
such as rape, torture and extermination that ISIL bring with them as
they advance.
Within Iraq itself government forces are continuing to make steady
progress to liberate the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah which are both in
Anbar province and are around 100km (60miles) and 50km (30miles) west
of the capital Baghdad respectively. On Sunday (21/9/14) the Iraq
military succeeded in pushing back ISIL forces who had laid siege to a
military base on the northern outskirts of the city. Now the battalion
there has been relieved the base can be used by the Iraqi military to
co-ordinate their efforts to liberate the city itself.
One interesting thing is that the US has stopped giving out details of
the air-strikes it is carrying out. So for example we know from local
sources that the US did act in support of Iraqi forces in the re-taking
of the army base on Sunday but we can't confirm what level of support
was provided. We also know from local sources that the US did carry out a
substantial air-strike against an ISIL logistics depot close to Mosul
on Saturday but again we can't tell what type of ordinance was used and
how much damage was done although the ISIL death-toll is said to be in
the hundreds.
I think that primarily this new found silence from the US is simply them
being difficult in an effort to annoy people like me. However if they
have moved towards more intense strikes against ISIL it would highlight
how suspiciously ineffective their operations have been up until now
because a large strike that kills hundreds makes a small strike against
the odd truck look almost harmless. Also the US and other coalition
aircraft have been flying reconnaissance missions over Iraq for more
then a month now which means that they should have a very good picture
of where all of ISIL's bases and logistics depots are.
Once you have that level on intelligence what you would normally do is
then try and destroy as many of those key targets as quickly as possible
in order to cripple ISIL making it easier for ground forces to defeat
them. The fact that the US is declining to do that provides further
indication that rather then trying to defeat them the US is in fact
trying to keep ISIL as a viable fighting force for as long as possible.
That is a very strange way to treat a supposed enemy.
(Originally Posted) 14:55 on 22/9/14 (UK date).
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