Operation Featherweight: Month 5, Week 2, Day 1.

Over the past two weeks I have been covering the 20th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP20). This is something I've been heavily involved in for at least 5 years now. If it fails it will put millions of lives at risk through increased climate hazards such as 2013's Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and the 2011 East African famine. If it succeeds the agreement that is being built should last for at least the next 85 years.

Therefore I think it was worth not commenting on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) for just two weeks. However the fact that I have not been commenting doesn't mean that I haven't been keeping an eye on things.

At the time of my last post on the subject ISIL had just launched a fresh assault on the Kurdish city of Kobane/Ayn al-Arab which sits just 1km (0.6 miles) from Syria's northern border with Turkey. This attack was short lived and repelled by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in a matter of hours. However this big push did succeed in emboldening ISIL fighters who have been trapped in Kobane for the best part of two months now. This led to roughly a week in which those ISIL fighters launched fresh attacks against the YPG in an effort to break out from their positions.

However by last Monday (8/12/14) those pockets of ISIL fighters had lost all initiative and the conflict returned to its usual momentum of the YPG conducting patrols and slowly liberating positions on all fronts. During these two weeks of fighting 5 YPG fighters lost their lives while 150 ISIL fighters were confirmed killed including Asadullah Al-Shishani a commander of the Chechen Brigades who were linked to the terror attacks on Russia in the run up to the 2014 Winter Olympics.

This puts the Battle of Kobane which today entered its fourth month firmly back into an attrition phase. As I've said throughout this worries me because due to Turkey's refusal to establish a supply corridor from Iraq's Kurdish region to Kobane ISIL's better suppliy lines mean that they hold the advantage in these attrition phases. On Friday (12/12/14) though the YPG decided to do something about this by seizing control of the main road between Kobane and Aleppo City - some 150km (90 miles) to the south-west - in the village of Tarmik which sits around 1km (0.6 miles) south of Kobane. Along with the YPG's control of the villages of Helinj and Jalabiyah to the south-east the gain of Tarmik means that they now control two of the three main supply routes into Kobane and have begun to totally cut ISIL positions in the south of the city off from the outside world.

The other major issue to come out November 29th (29/11/14) ISIL assault on Kobane is that a significant portion of it was planned and launched from an industrial facility that is owned and operated by the state-owned Turkish Grain Board (TMO) that is located firmly on the Turkish side of the border. As such people were waiting to see what punishment the US as leader of the anti-ISIL coalition would impose on Turkey at the meeting of the coalition that took place in Brussels, Belgium on December 3rd (3/12/14). For example the US telling Turkey that they were no longer welcome at that meeting would have sent a strong message.

Unfortunately though the US' response to Turkey's material support for ISIL was to take no action whatsoever. This failure in US leadership forced the other members of the coalition to fall in line to avoid a split. So on December 8th (8/12/14) the European Union's (EU) new High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini made her first official visit to Turkey to meet President Erdogan amongst others. Although cancelling this long scheduled trip would have been a major step it perhaps would have been wise for the EU to decline giving Turkey USD12.5 million to aid Syrian refugees and given the money to aid Syrian refugees in Lebanon instead.

Finally in the parade of shame UK Prime Minister David Cameron visited Turkey on Tuesday (9/12/14) and pledged closer co-operation between the UK and Turkish intelligence services while promising to help Turkey become a full member of the EU. On Wednesday (10/12/14) Cameron visited Poland where he was sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp to think about what he'd done.

One thing that did come out of the Brussels meeting is that members of the coalition who are not America are going to send some 1,300 troops to Iraq to join the some 5,000 US troops who are already there acting as trainers/advisers to the Iraqi Army. Due to the local knowledge built up during their 8 year occupation of Iraq the UK will be providing the majority (around 500) of these troops to be stationed in three bases in an around the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and one base in the northern Kurdish region.

As these troops will be classed as advisers rather then combat troops this move is permitted by the authorisation given the UK Parliament. However I think that it something that Parliament is going to have to keep a very close eye on because a non-combat role is most certainly not the same thing as saying these troops wont be placed in danger.

ISIL have made it quite clear that they would like nothing more then to have the opportunity to kill troops from western nations which they consider members of "The Armies of the Cross." Through the recent attack on United Nations convoy on "Route Irish" which links Baghdad's Greenzone with Baghdad international airport and Wednesday's (10/12/14) suicide attack on an army base in Samarra just outside Baghdad in which 9 were killed ISIL have certainly proved that they are capable of killing troops stationed in and around Baghdad.

Also the Americans themselves rate half of Iraq's army - some 140,000 men - as either "good" or "very good." When France deployed to Mali to help defeat an enemy similar to ISIL machine gunners in the Malian army had to shout; "Bang, bang, bang, bang!" during training exercises because they didn't have any bullets to practise with. However the Islamists in Mali were still routed in under four weeks.

Therefore I think US President Obama's desire to keep sending more ground troops to Iraq is driven not by necessity but by a desire to be seen to do something without actually doing anything that might risk defeating ISIL. As such the US Congress will also have to keep a very close eye on how the fight against ISIL is progressing.

In the passing of the funding bill that finally happened last night Congress has taken a first step by passing a defence budget that allows the US to fully fund Kurdish forces at the expense of Sunni-Arab insurgent forces in Syria. The real work though will begin in January when a Authorisation for Military Force bill will be presented to the new session of a Republican controlled Congress. The White House wants a three year authorisation while I think a three month rolling authorisation would be more use in keeping Obama on the straight and narrow.

(Originally Posted) 17:20 on 14/12/14 (UK date)