Operation Featherweight: Month 3, Week 1, Day 2.

In the roughly 24 hours since my last post on the subject the US and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have carried out a further confirmed 6 air-strikes (the real number is said to be closer to 10) in the vicinity of the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab. This of course is the strategically important city that sits just 1km (0.6 miles) from Syria's border with Turkey and around 140km (84 miles) north of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) stronghold of Raqqa and has been under threat of being over-run by ISIL since mid-September.

These latest strikes bring the total of coalition air-strikes up to between 14 and 18 in the past 40 hours and appear to have included the use of the US' large B-1 Lancer bomber. If that is confirmed though it remains obvious that the B-1's are not being used to anywhere near the full extent of their capabilities because the type of strikes undertaken continue to be of the highly targeted, pin-prick variety. These strikes have destroyed 2 ISIL artillery positions, an ISIL Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) and 4 ISIL armed "Technical" trucks with a fifth technical being damaged.

Despite the coalition air-strikes being far from overwhelming they do appear to have had a dramatic impact on the battle for Kobane. Yesterday morning it seemed that Kobane would imminently fall into ISIL hands with their fighters having entered the eastern, southern and western sections of the city and gaining ever more territory as they slowly advanced towards the centre. Since the air-strikes have begun ISIL have been stopped from advancing any further into the city and have begun to be pushed out by the Kurdish defenders. However this most certainly does not mean that the battle for Kobane is over because ISIL fighters are still within the city. It does though mean that the momentum of the battle has shifted in favour of the defenders although that can easily change.

If the Kurdish defenders do eventually win the battle for Kobane and ISIL fighters are forced into a full scale retreat this does not mean that the coalition air-strikes can stop. If anything they should intensify in order to destroy as much of ISIL's fighting capacity (troops, weapons, equipment etc) as possible in order to prevent ISIL from launching a fresh assault on Kobane or any other city in the coming days. This will also send the very strong message to ISIL that no matter what deal they've done with Turkey the coalition is prepared to fight to defend Kobane and it will win that fight. Once that message has got through to ISIL the way that they have operated up until now indicates that they will simply give up and trying going after a softer target instead.

The shift in the balance of power in Kobane will clearly disappoint Turkey because it reduces pressure on coalition to agree to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's harebrained scheme for Syrian Kurdistan which demands the establishment of a no-fly zone and buffer zone. The call for a no-fly zone is simply ridiculous because ISIL don't have any aircraft meaning that all the territory they control is already a no-fly zone and always has been.

The call for a buffer zone however is much more dangerous because buffer zones are normally used in peacekeeping operations during civil wars. The idea is to keep two warring parties who both have legitimate claims to territory apart in order for a political agreement to be reached. So by calling for a buffer zone Erdogan is suggesting that ISIL should be granted legitimacy and allowed to continue doing as they please provided they don't threaten the border with Turkey. As Erdogan has previously been a vocal supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hamas in Gaza I think it is fair to say that his moral compass is more then a little bit skewed.

What the coalition should do instead is recognise ISIL as the foreign invasion force that it clearly is and co-ordinate with ground forces to liberate the territory they have seized by forcing ISIL back to the point where they are ultimately destroyed. There can be no suggestion that Turkish forces can be involved in this operation because Erdogan has already made it clear that he views ISIL as better allies then the Kurds and overnight the Turkish security forces have killed 18 Kurdish civilians who were protesting in Turkey for action to be taken to protect Kobane.

This means that the Kurdish death toll within Turkey is now close to the Kurdish death toll in Kobane over the same period.

(Originally Posted) 15:30 on 8/10/14 (UK date).