Is policy on Daesh changing?

It is clear from heavy French airstrikes on strategic Daesh targets in Raqqa and a US hit on 119 Daesh oil tankers that until the cult slew 129 people in Paris, the policy of the US-led coalition towards Daesh was containment rather than elimination.

In fact, the policy can be categorised as “loose containment”.

The French claim they struck a Daesh command centre and training facility that should have been hit long ago if the coalition had been serious about eradicating Daesh, while the US should also have eliminated large strategic targets like oil tankers months ago.

The US-led coalition has been conducting air raids on insurgent targets for more than 15 months and, according to Secretary of State John Kerry, the US alone carried out 8,000 raids in this campaign.

The US conducts 93 per cent of the coalition attacks.

The gains on the ground by Western-supported forces in both Syria and Iraq have, during this time, been incremental rather than sweeping. Furthermore, key advances have been made by Kurdish forces, causing both concern and controversy in Turkey and Iraq.

Syrian Kurdish militias include the Peoples Protection Units (PYD), the military wing of the Democratic Union Party, which is connected with the Turkish Workers Party (PKK) that has been battling Ankara for autonomy and Kurdish rights since 1984.

The PYD claims it has between 40-50,000 fighters. It can count on the support of the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), Yazidi Kurdish units that are also an offshoot of the PKK, which have been trained by that organisation.

PYD units bolstered by US airstrikes captured Al Hol and numerous villages in the Hasakeh province. The town is on the Raqqa-Mosul supply route, and as well as on the route used by foreign fighters to reach Raqqa from Turkey.

This offensive raised questions about PYD’s intentions, as the Kurds have been accused of driving Arabs and Turkmen from villages in the wide band of territory along the Syrian-Turkish border in order to add them to the unilaterally proclaimed Kurdish “Rojava” entity, modelled on the Kurdish region in Iraq.

Separately, the Syrian army, backed by Iranian advisers and Russian air strikes, has retaken towns and villages south of Aleppo and a strategic airbase east of the city.

The battle for the Iraqi town of Sinjar, the latest high-profile operation in the war against Daesh, coincided with both the Beirut and Paris bombings, but there was no connection.

After Daesh fighters had been subjected to US aerial bombing, Kurdish infantry moved into the town after 30 hours, encountering only Daesh snipers.

The fall of Sinjar was a significant development for several reasons. The retreat of Daesh demonstrated that its fighters are no more dedicated than those of other, well organised forces, and is certain to undermine morale while boosting the morale of the Kurds who made up for their flight from Sinjar when it was attacked by Daesh in August 2014.

The rout at Sinjar is also major strategic loss for Daesh.

Kurds have taken control of Highway 47, which connects Daesh’s capital of Raqqa, in Syria, to Mosul, Iraq’s second city and Daesh’s major conquest in that country. The Kurds also seized villages in the neighbourhood, secondary roads and desert tracks in order to halt the flow of goods, arms and fighters between Raqqa and Mosul.

The Sinjar operation demonstrated that Kurds from Syria, Turkey and Iraq can fight together. The effort involved Iraqi Yazidi militiamen and women, PKK and YPG fighters, and peshmerga, belonging to the Iraqi Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) led by Massoud Barzani, president of the country’s Kurdish autonomous region.

The presence of KDP peshmerga is a major departure for Barzani, who has been allied with Turkey, which regularly attacks PKK fighters based in the inaccessible mountains along the borders with Iraq and Iran.

Barzani clearly saw the battle for Sinjar as an opportunity he could not afford to miss, although taking part could anger Ankara.

As the peshmerga raised the Iraqi Kurdish regional flag over the town, he proclaimed its liberation and claimed it for the Kurdish region, risking alienating Baghdad as well because Sinjar belongs to the Arab province of Nineveh.

These modest advances on the ground strengthened US and Russia ahead of the November 14 talks in Vienna, attended by 17 countries, the European Union, UN and Arab League.

Washington and Moscow secured agreement that Daesh and Al Qaeda’s Jabhat Al Nusra should be regarded as “terrorist” groups and all parties must act on this assumption.

Truces will not apply to these and similar groups.

Patrons of the government and insurgent groups not designated as “terrorist” would be compelled to ensure that they abide by ceasefires.

Representatives of the government and opposition are meant to meet no later than January 1, 2016, to negotiate a transition agreement and in six months establish a credible, inclusive, non-sectarian government, write a new constitution and hold elections within 18 months.

While the events in Paris seem to have convinced interested powers — regional and global — to shift from the policy of containment of Daesh and the taqfiris to concrete action against them, it remains to be seen how long their commitment to action will last.