On Wednesday (24/9/14) the US-led coalition continued it's strategic
bombing campaign Syria. In total they carried out 15 separate
air-strikes. Three of these strikes took place in the area surrounding
Dayr az Zawr which sits on the Euphrates River and is around 175km
(105miles) from the border with Iraq. Each one of those strikes
destroyed or partially destroyed a single armed "technical" truck
belonging the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The majority of the air-strikes (13 in total) though were against Al
Hasakah which is around 250km (150 miles) north of Dayr az Zawr and Al
Mayadin and Abu Kamal which are respectively around 50km (30 miles) and
130km (78miles) to the south-east of Dayr az Zawr along the Euphrates
River towards the Iraq border. All of these 13 strikes were targeted
against what are termed "modular oil refineries." These are small,
partially pre-fabricated oil refineries that are intended to be used
close to oil fields mainly to produce fuel to operate the oil field.
Although they are in construction terms easy to disassemble, transport
and reassemble I wouldn't go so far as to describe them as "mobile."
The reason given from selecting these targets for attack is that they
were being used by ISIL to refine oil from fields they hold in Iraq into
petrol that they were selling on the black market for an estimated
USD2million per day although I suspect the black market price would have
been around 40% lower. Therefore the refineries were destroyed in order
to starve ISIL of this revenue stream. I however think that it was an
unwise target to strike at this time. As these strikes have not closed
off the smuggling routes across Turkey that ISIL used to sell its
refined gasoline they will simply switch to selling crude oil instead
although admittedly that will reduce their potential customer pool and
the price per barrel they can charge.
Secondly I think the main purpose of these refineries was not to produce
a product for export but to simply provide fuel to people living in
areas under ISIL control. Obviously disrupting that supply will have
some impact on ISIL's ability to fight but it is likely that they will
respond by introducing rationing meaning that the people who will be hit
the hardest by these strikes are civilians such as the taxi driver who
needs fuel to run his business, the motorcyclist who needs fuel to get
to his job or the meat seller who needs fuel to run a generator to power
his fridges. A disruption to the fuel supply is going to make those
people very angry. In the short term that anger will likely be directed
against ISIL which would be very useful if ground forces were in
position ready to overthrow ISIL. However as it is likely to be several
months before ISIL areas in Syria are liberated it is likely that any
anger will be controlled and steadily built up against the people who
are doing the bombing strengthening support for ISIL and making the
areas harder to liberate when ground forces eventually arrive.
As such I think a much better idea would have been to focus strategic
bombing efforts on Iraq where ground forces are in position. That way
the Iraqi oil fields which supplied to oil to the Syrian refineries
would be more easily recaptured preventing ISIL from selling any oil
products. Plus by stopping the supply to the refineries you would be
able to choke of the supply of gasoline but because no-one would see any
bombing they would associate any shortages with ISIL rather then with
the people doing the bombing. Also once big Iraqi cities such as Mosul,
Ramadi and Fallujah start being liberated it creates this wave of
inevitability that ISIL are going to be overthrown which will make it
much harder for them to attract new support and consolidate the support
they already have in areas under their control.
The telling thing about yesterday's strikes is that the majority of them
were carried out not by the US but by the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
and primarily Saudi Arabia. This seems to indicate that the US is now
nothing more then a high paying passenger on an operation that is being
driven by the Gulf States.
Despite the large scale expansion of operations into Syria it seems that
the US has not completely forgotten about Iraq where it continues some
small scale, pin-prick strikes. On Monday (22/9/14) the US carried out
four strikes which destroyed two unarmed ISIL vehicles, an ISIL tank and
damaged an ISIL Humvee in the vicinity of Kirkuk which is around 125km
(75miles) south of Arbil and 200km (120miles) south-east of Mosul. On
Tuesday (23/9/14) the US carried out a single strike that destroyed a
single ISIL technical just north of Baghdad. There is of course no
indication that these strikes were undertaken either in support of the
Iraqi army's attempts to retake Ramadi and Fallujah or that they were
part of a strategic campaign intended to seriously disrupt ISIL's
operations in the country.
Today it has been announced that France has carried out air-strikes in
Iraq on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. As is common with the French
they have yet to announce precise details about the aircraft used and
the type of targets struck but as they are still being forced to operate
from bases in the UAE it is likely to be similar to the strike on
September 19th when Rafele jets destroyed an ISIL logistics depot in
northern Iraq. That was an example of strategic bombing.
Another significant flaw in the coalition's current plan is the absence
of air-strikes in northern Syria close to Kobane/Ayn al-Arab where ISIL
are continuing their advance against Kurdish areas. Pin-prick strikes of
the type currently being used in Iraq would be highly effective here in
stopping the ISIL advance which would both reduce the amount of
territory held by ISIL and the number of Kurdish civilians under threat
of extermination by them.
On Friday (16/9/14) the British Parliament is being recalled to discuss
and vote on a motion allowing UK forces to join in air-strikes.
Obviously I will need to read the exact text of the motion before
commenting fully. However if as has been indicated it will only allow
for strikes in Iraq with a separate vote being required for strikes in
Syria I would be inclined to support it because with both the permission
of the Iraqi government and United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
resolution 2170 (2014) there is no question over the legality of these
strikes. Plus it is clear that a lot of experienced heads are going to
be needed to nudge US President Obama into conducting this operation
properly in order to stop it turning into a disaster.
Finally Obama chaired a special session of the UNSC yesterday that
unanimously passed resolution 2178 (2014) which is intended to tackle
foreign fighters attempting to join ISIL. The UK quickly responded to by
arresting well known MI5 asset Anjem Choudary on unrelated charges to
show that the UK is complying with the resolution and offering
suggestions of how other nations could discreetly act to dismantle the
pipelines they've built up to supply ISIL with fighters.
What is really interesting about this UNSC session though is that Obama
had originally intended for it to be used to pass a resolution
authorising broad military action in Syria. However I gather that in
pre-negotiations so many nations indicated that they would not be
supporting a plan that seems so poorly thought through Obama was unable
to bring it to the table for formal discussion.
(Originally Posted) 17:00 on 25/9/14 (UK date).
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