Operation Featherweight: Week 3, Day 4.

Although it is far from stable the battlefield situation in Iraq seems to have settled into something of a holding pattern.

The town of Amerli remains encircled by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters who are fortunately being preventing from entering the town. However this most certainly does not mean that Amerli's 26,000 or so residents are safe. Having been under siege for the past two months they have found themselves in a very similar situation to the Yazaidis who were trapped on Sinjar mountain with no electricity, clean water or sewage systems and both food and ammunition supplies are running extremely low. As a result the United Nations warning of an impending massacre is still very much valid.

However unlike with the people in Sinjar mountain there have been no large scale aid drops to provide food, drinking water and the ammunition the people desperately need to stop the town being overrun by ISIL. There is also no plan in place to start an aid operation or mount an evacuation to rescue the residents of Amerli.

The situation in Jalawa is also static. Here the Kurdish Peshmerga with help from the Iraqi military have succeeded in liberating some of the smaller towns around Jalawa from ISIL. However they so far remain unable to raise the strength needed to liberate the town itself.

The US response to all this has been to do next to nothing. On Saturday (23/8/14) and Sunday (24/8/14) they carried out exactly two air-strikes. One of these targeted an ISIL Humvee close to the Mosul Dam while the other targeted an ISIL "Technical" armed truck close to Arbil. Mosul Dam is roughly 325km (195miles) away from Amerli and 425km (255miles) away from Jalawa. Arbil is slightly closer only being 225km (135miles)  to the north of Amerli and 325km (195miles) to the north of Jalawa. However I think its fair to say that the US' air-strikes have taken place absolutely nowhere near where they are needed.

With the battlefield situation static there has been an increase in more tradition terrorist tactics. Today a suicide bomber struck a Shia Mosque in Baghdad during noon prayers killing at least 15. This was followed by a car bombing in the town of Karbala which is just south of Baghdad that killed at least 15 people. In turn this was followed by two further car bombings in Babel which is also just to the south of Baghdad. Those twin bombings killed at least 11 bringing the total killed today to at least 41.

Coming just three days after the massacre at the Musab bin Omar Mosque in which 70 Sunnis were killed today's bombings which have targeted Shias is supposed to look like a retaliation for Friday's (22/8/14) massacre. However I think all of these attacks are likely the work ISIL The intention being to stoke up sectarian violence in order to allow ISIL to prosper in the chaos. After all US President Obama has very publicly made an 'inclusive government' presumably made up of both Sunnis and Shias are precondition for fighting ISIL.

On a somewhat related note in Libya Misrata based militias linked to ISIL appear to have seized control of the capital Tripoli. In the week prior to that taking place a series of very small air-strikes were carried out by unknown aircraft including a single strike on Saturday in which a single plane dropped a single bomb on the Misrata militia's position killing 10. With Libya being just as oil rich as Iraq ISIL increasing its power there should have sent shockwaves throughout the US government. However the US' only response has been to completely make up a story about the air-strikes being carried out by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the support of Egypt which is a very different position from the general consensus. So strange is this claim by they US that it seems like an attempt to increase pressure on Egypt and the UAE to prevent them mediating a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza.

After all Obama has already decided that he and he alone is the one who is going to take the glory for bringing peace to the middle-east no matter how much of it burns.

(Originally Posted) 19:40 on 25/8/14 (UK date).