On Saturday (18/10/14) the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
began gathering fighters from across their territory to mount a fresh
assault on the strategically important city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which
sits just 1km (0.6 miles) from Syria's border with Turkey. According to
some reports these reinforcements included members of what is
effectively ISIL's police force who in the days prior had been spending
their time directing traffic in the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa which is
around 140km (84 miles) to the south-east of Kobane. On Saturday night
this fresh ISIL assault was launched and quickly repelled by Kobane's
Kurdish defenders. This put everyone into something of a holding pattern
while ISIL worked out what their next move was going to be.
ISIL could send more reinforcements to Kobane in order to launch a fresh
assault to capture the city. Alternatively - as has been ISIL's pattern
throughout the conflict - they could decide that Kobane is now too
tough a target for them to take and simply give up in order to attack
softer targets. Annoyingly the US-led coalition's attempts to destroy
ISIL's command and control structures actually makes it harder to
predict what ISIL will do next. However in the past three weeks or so
there has been a significant increase in the number of suicide bombings
carried out by ISIL in Shia districts of Iraq's capital Baghdad. In fact
there have been 25 bombings in the past 96 hours of so that have killed
at least 50 people. These bombings seem intended to provoke Baghdad's
Shia residents to carry out revenge attacks against Baghdad's Sunnis
prompting the Sunnis to side with ISIL allowing them to seize control of
the city from within.
Other potential soft targets that ISIL may go after include the
Iraq/Syria border area around the Sinjar mountains and the town of Rabia
which is around 125km (75 miles) north-west of the ISIL controlled city
of Mosul. The city of Mosul which is obviously close to the Mosul Dam
which was liberated by Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga back in August sits
around 80km (50 miles) to the west of the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Arbil
and around 330km (200 miles) north of Baghdad. Within Syria there is
the border town of Sari Kani which sits around 100km (60 miles) to the
east of Kobane which will also give ISIL the link they want into Turkey.
Hopefully though this time the coalition will be aware of the threat
and have a plan in place to intervene long before the situation gets as
desperate as it did in Kobane.
On Sunday night the US dramatically broke the tension by air-dropping
supplies provided by the Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq to the Kurdish
People's Protection Units (YPG) that have been defending Kobane.
Although for obvious reasons exact details of what supplies were
delivered aren't available it seems that 27 pallets containing a mix of
small-arms (assault rifles), ammunition and medical supplies
successfully reached the YPG. Depending on how the situation in Kobane
develops I would estimate that these supplies will last between 1 and 2
weeks. Therefore there will need to be further air-drops in order to
allow the YPG to mount a continuing defence of Kobane.
Although they were gratefully received on the ground the greatest impact
of this air-drop is likely to be on Turkey who had refused to allow the
supply planes to travel through its air-space. By carrying out the
air-drop the US has shown Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that
no matter how much he attempts to obstruct the coalition operation
against ISIL the coalition will not only find a way around those
obstacles it will also find ways to punish Turkey for its violation of
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2170 (2014). This
message already seems to have had some impact on Turkey because in the
hours following the air-drop Turkey is now claiming that it is going to
allow Kurdish Peshmerga fighters from Iraq to travel through Turkey in
order to help the YPG defend Kobane.
However Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was keen to stress
that this plan was only at the negotiating stage meaning that it is
likely going to require further work before Peshmerga fighters actually
start arriving in Kobane.
(Originally Posted) 16:30 on 20/10/14 (UK date).
No comments:
Post a Comment