Since my last post on the subject on Monday (24/11/14) things have been
comparatively quiet in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL). Basically much like people in the rest of the world
everyone in Syria and Iraq have been waiting to see if the US was going
to slip into widespread race riots in response to the decision in
Ferguson in the Micheal Brown case.
I can't help but feel though that perhaps if US President Barack Obama
had turned up to the occasional intelligence briefing on Syria he may
have learnt where making up stories about fictional instances of
oppression in order to pursue a sectarian agenda can lead a country.
In the city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab the Kurdish People's Protection Units
(YPG) have continued to mount patrols on all fronts to remove ISIL
fighters from buildings/positions they occupy. I wouldn't go so far as
to say that ISIL are no longer capable of fighting the YPG because every
building is being fought over hard. However ISIL are certainly no
longer able to take territory from the YPG and are instead desperately
trying to hold onto the territory they do occupy without much success.
Over the past three days the YPG have liberated around 15 ISIL
positions, killed around 48 ISIL fighters and captured weapons and
ammunition across all fronts.
The YPG have also started to mount commando-style raids against ISIL
positions outside of Kobane. One such raid on Thursday (27/11/14) killed
a senior ISIL commander known as Abu-Khansa along with his bodyguards
in the village of Til Khazal.
On Saturday (22/11/14) and Sunday (23/11/14) it appeared as though ISIL
were assembling forces just outside of Kobane in order to launch a fresh
assault on the city. Although it seems to have been discouraged by the
YPG themselves the US-led coalition did eventually move to eliminate the
threat carrying out 10 air-strikes between Monday and Wednesday
(26/11/14) which destroyed 7 ISIL fighting positions and 4 ISIL troop
staging areas wiping out a large ISIL group unit and 2 smaller ground
units in the process.
Although they turned up late as always these strikes were undoubtedly
welcomed by the YPG. However with ISIL continuing to shell Kobane from
artillery positions some 8km (4.8 miles) to the west I can't help but
feel they are a poor substitute for establishing a supply corridor
through Turkey that would allow the YPG to defend both Kobane and
Serekanyie (Ras al-Ayn) without having to rely on coalition air-strikes
which are difficult to organise and very, very expensive with
Hellfire-type missiles costing around USD100,000 each.
Sadly there is still absolutely no indication that the US intends to
exert any pressure whatsoever on Turkey to make this happen. This is
despite Turkey announcing plans to dispatch heat-trapping blankets to
Syria and Iraq to help ISIL fighters hide from coalition air-strikes
which rely on infrared targeting systems. This of course hasn't stopped
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unleashing another anti-US rant
on Wednesday in which he condemned US "impertinence, recklessness and
endless demands" over the suggestion that the world doesn't allow ISIL
to carry out a genocide in Kobane.
On a related note on also on Wednesday Israel's internal security
service the Shin Bet arrested 30 Hamas members who had been plotting a
Mumbai-style terror attack against sports stadiums in Jerusalem. The
attacks were planned in and the attackers trained in Turkey. Meanwhile
the Palestinian Authority accused Turkey last Saturday (26/11/14) to
trying to overthrow them.
On Wednesday the Syrian government launched a series of air-strikes
against the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa. This is highly unusual because
prior to ISIL making it their centre of operations Raqqa was of
extremely limited strategic value. As a result it was the first major
city that the Syrian government let fall to the Sunni-Arab insurgency.
Since then the Syrian government has concentrated first on securing the
capital Damascus and then slowly liberating the major cities along the
west of the country such as Homs, Hama and they are currently fighting
over Aleppo City.
The US has repeatedly tried to use the Syrian governments failure to
fight ISIL in the north-eastern section of the country they hold to
claim that ISIL are allied to the Syrian government rather then simply
part of the Sunni-Arab insurgency that the US supports.
Therefore the US is utterly furious with the Syrian air-strikes against
Raqqa. Firstly because they showed that the Syrian government is most
certainly trying to fight ISIL but also because they showed that the
years of sanctions and arms embargoes that the US has imposed on Syria
in order to assist the Sunni-Arab insurgency has left the Syrian
government incapable of carrying out the type of precision strikes that
the US is capable. Therefore when the Syrian government carries out
attacks against the insurgents it is forced to put civilian lives at
risk.
Apart from furious condemnation by the US Ambassador to the United
Nations (UN), Samantha Power the US also appears to have tired to punish
the Syria government for its attacks on ISIL by instructing insurgents
in the Free Syrian Army (FSA) grouping to launch a fresh offensive
against government troops to the south of Damascus. This offensive
stands absolutely no chance of over-running Damascus but is does give
the Syrian government something else to think about.
It does also though serve to highlight the stupidity of the US' current
approach to the fight against ISIL. Apart from this small band of
positions to the south of Damascus and an ever shrinking number of
pockets around Aleppo City the FSA grouping has no presence in a country
which is divided between ISIL, the Al Qaeda allied Al Nusra Front (ANF)
and the Syrian government. That means that it is simply impossible for
the FSA grouping to be used as a ground force in the fight against ISIL
and ANF.
It also means that if the Syrian government is overthrown as the US
still wishes to do then the last substantial, moderate element in Syria
will be removed and the entire country will be overrun by ISIL and ANF -
two groups that are prescribed by the UN Security Council (UNSC) and
the US-led coalition is supposed to be trying to defeat.
Finally during the Ferguson protests the US network FoxNews claimed that
ISIL were trying to use the protests as a way to recruit Americans to
their cause. This was widely mocked on Twitter but I was actually
watching ISIL do this at the time. It is after all very much the way
that ISIL operate.
Often describing jihad as their "Call of Duty" in reference to the
popular video game their recruiting pitch is normally along the lines
of; "Stuck in a dead-end job? Can't get a girlfriend? Sick of playing
video games all day? Well join ISIL and give your life purpose by
fighting oppression!" Of course once the recruits have been suckered in
by the pitch they discover that the oppression doesn't exist and they're
being forced into suicide squads so decide they'd much rather be back
home playing computer games instead.
Therefore it has to be said that there's not a whole lot of difference
between the way that ISIL recruit and the way that the Obama
administration responded to the Micheal Brown shooting.
(Originally Posted) 16:40 on 28/11/14 (UK date).
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