Update on ISIS
EA-6B stern aspect
The following is the latest news on ISIS, as of this morning.
ISIS has been stuck in one small area on the Iraq-Syria border for over a year. It’s something CNN and the other, more blighted newsfeeds don’t relay to the public.
They were in a pocket around Hajin, being faced by Iraqi and Syrian and Kurdish troops.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/09/world/middleeast/isis-territory-syria-iraq.html
They aren’t completely obliterated, no. Per that NYT article, they may or may not have about 20,000 to 30,000 in Iraq and Syria, as the CIA estimated in 2014. Some self-identified IS supporter says there are more in hidden places. That’s entirely possible, but both of those are hearsay, not hard evidence.
In fact, Kurdish forces on Dec.14 seized control of Hajin, along with Syrian Democratic Forces:
Many were killed in US-led airstrikes, which have not stopped. The successful efforts of local ground forces (Kurds, Iraqi and Syrian) should relieve the 2,000 US special operatives on the ground of the necessity of staying in locus, allowing them to return to the USA.
Nothing was said about ending US airstrikes.
While there may be isolated jihadi groups here and there, such as those who claimed responsibility for the Christmas attacks in Paris a year ago, the evidence provided indicates that ISIS has been effectively choked as a mass force. No doubt, the guerrilla tactics of blindsiding people with bomb attacks in subway stations or going into soccer stadia and shooting groups of people, or murdering two Scandinavian girls who were backpacking this past week in Morocco , a relatively safe tourist area, will continue. That is how they operate.
But Hajin is/was their last stronghold and it is gone.
The Middle East has a history of warfare that dates as far back as 15,000 yeras, further back than when Sennacherib stole the statue of Marmuk from a temple and died of drinking plague-contaminated water. It has never been anything other than a battlefield.
The war with ISIS is a continuation of what started long, long ago and has never stopped. If they are reduced to a few hate-filled crowd bombers and manage to wipe out whatever is left of them, something else will rise to take their place.
Category: Isis
If our people were there as advisors and trainers, then it’s perfectly reasonable for that (narrow) mission to be finished before ISIS is completely obliterated.
What I foresee happening here is we get the boots out of the country and go back to launching air strikes and tomahawks. There’ll probably still be a handful of SOF types like Green Berets doing their indigenous training mission for a while.
Thats the bulk of what we’ve been doing in Syria all along. That and some fire and air support. We were not directly fighting ISIS.
If any ISIS would like to stop over at Fort Roh-Dog I’d be happy to roll out the welcome mat! And by mat I mean some old carpet scrap on top of plastic sheeting, just in case.
These islamofascists douche bags have metastasized all the f* over because of some perverted sense of moral decency professed by leftists. They have no respect for western values, are illiberal and want everyone to think like them or they will punish you.
The mus-slimes will cut your head off.
Awesome. I hope they are completely destroyed. Both articles have a few cautionary notes:
From The NY Times (by the way, I thought they were rated FF (Fake and Failing): “U.S. and Iraqi politicians have been quick to declare victory over the group, using terms like ‘defeated’ and ‘obliterated,’” he wrote in a report issued last month. “The Islamic State is far from obliterated.”
From the Telegraph: “ISIS anticipated its battlefield defeat and the loss of the caliphate and prepared accordingly,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University.
Dude, we just surrendered.
ISIS is not going anywhere.
Well then, Larsie…what would be your gameplan if you were in charge? Or, don’t you have one?
Yet Commissar instructed us on 3/2/2015 regarding ISIS that:
Things that make you go “hmmmmmmm”…….
LOL…!!!…Thanks for the laugh..!!!
ISIS has 20,000 to 30,000 fighters and their position is due to constant pressure in no small part due to Kurdish forces and US support and actions against ISIS.
Trump flat lied when he said ISIS was defeated.
The people who want Mthe US out of the ME is Russia, Iran, and Syria.
Turkey just wants to kill out Kurdish allies.
Hamas released a statement praising the removal of US troops as well.
Trump made this decision unilateral against the advice of the entire defense and intelligence community based ENTIRELY on the wishes of Erdogan and Putin.
Trump is a turncoat. Not just to our allies but to our country.
He is weakening the power and influence of the US everywhere in the world. Undermining our alliances and PURPOSEFULLY making room for Russian expansion of power and influence in Europe and the ME.
That is why Mattis resigned.
Trump undermining our trade agreements and relationship in Asia has also allowed China to expand their power and influence.
The vacuum we are leaving in the ME will not just allow Russian expansion of influence but ISIS and Iran as well.
How can someone miss you if you never leave?
Hint, hint
Can someone direct him to a 7th grade class in English?
Nobody gives a rat’s ass about your “empiric data” or analysis, Poodledick.
Go snarf down a bag of creme filled gummy dicks…
Apparently, ol’ Lars the *Uninformed* and Nottoobright missed the history of the Soviet Union’s attempt to annex Afyghanistan into the Soviet Union, back in the late 1970s to late 1980s. The USSR spent its fortune on that fiasco, and finally pulled out in bankruptcy and defeat. I did an article a while back on the cost of that and how military pay for the Soviet army was next to nothing because of it.
So the notion that Russia is seeking influence there is concocted out of smoke and his fantasies, based on his notions of how the world is put together instead of reality. Russia wants markets for its oil and LNP products. That’s their interest.
And the left has surrendered our Southern border.
Just fuck off and Die Lars, nobody gives a rats ass what you think!
Obama flat lied when he said ISIS was decimated.
Obama flat lied when he said ISIS was the JV.
There, fixed it for ya jackass
Don’t forget all the arms the former Glorious Leader sent to ISIS.
Too true TOW, I could go for hours on stuff like that, I just figured I’d focus on correcting statements that Lars made…
Now, see??? If I had NOT provided those numbers for the toothless megamouth not-a-shark to absorb, he’d have had nothing to use, would he?
He just jumped on those numbers with no valid verification other than what some CIA analyst provided in 2014, and may or may not be valid now.
That was just too easy.
It’s a false assumption that, IF there are 20k to 30k of these murdering basterds left, they are in Hajiin or anywhere near it. The town is nearly rubble now, as it is. So where would that many hide?
If there are still that many, or barely half – say, 10,000 – they are scattered to the four winds, have likely invaded Europe and parts of Scandinavia as “migrants” (except where “migrants” were blocked from entry) and are probably behind the public rapes and beatings of Swedish women that have been going on for the last three years. They are also most likely to be behind those “no-go” areas in Paris and some German towns, London, and a few other cities – places where even the cops won’t go.
But then, I keep up with these things and SquishfisBagpudding just scams the work that others have done and tries to claim it.
Makes you wonder just how much of his alleged “graduate work” is really his, doesn’t it?
‘No-Go areas… I actually like that idea.. makes getting accurate grid coordinates easier.. now we just need a series of “fire for effect” orders…
That’s a great way to look at it. There’s always a bright side!
“The people who want Mthe US out of the ME is Russia, Iran, and Syria.”
And me. And a few million other Trump voters. That was, I believe, one of his campaign pledges.
“Trump made this decision unilateral…”
Because that is his job. As “W” once said, “I am the decider”. Harry Truman said “The buck stops here”.
” based ENTIRELY on the wishes of Erdogan and Putin.”
Horseshit.
“Trump is a turncoat.”
More horseshit. I guess that makes me and a few million other Americans turncoats, too. I want us out of Syria, Afghanistan, and a few other places.
The rest of your comment is just more horseshit.
I think we know by now that you don’t like Trump. It is no longer necessary for you to flaunt your ignorance in order to show it.
His entire comment is ungrammatical and it shows functional illiteracy, too.
Sister Mary Grace would have a field day with him and her No. 15 yellow pencil.
Babbles McButthead’s perpetual intellectual and logical mediocrity sometimes bores the hell out of me, and this is one such time.
Pull everybody out. Send Lars in. Nuke the bastards! Both problems solved.
I’m up for that ‘send Commissar in’, 5th/77thFA.
All he has done today is prove how little he knows, how weak his arguments are, and how quickly he steals information that other people found, and tries to claim it for himself.
He does not have an ounce of credibility at all.
Seagull
Just thought I should mention that Trump’s decision should not be a surprise to Mattis et al. In April Trump gave them six months to finish up and withdraw. Sounds to me like they had their orders but decided to ignore them. Trump had grounds to fire him.
“The President responded by saying US troops need to finish their mission against ISIS in Syria within six months, a timeline military officials — including Defense Secretary James Mattis — warned would be too short, according to the administration official. Trump responded by telling his team to just get it done.”
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/04/politics/donald-trump-syria-troops/index.html
” According to the Associated Press, Mattis argued “that an immediate withdrawal” from Syria “could be catastrophic and was logistically impossible to pull off in any responsible way,” and offered a one-year timeline as an alternative—to which Trump responded that five or six months ought to do the trick, and “indicated that he did not want to hear in October that the military had been unable to fully defeat the Islamic State and had to remain in Syria for longer.” ”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/donald-trump-timeline-syria-troop-withdrawal
Glad you brought that up.
Told them to get it done in six months. Ended up giving them eight months, which is really nine by the time they finish the redeployment. Seems reasonable to me.
The fact that he made up his mind six months ago doesn’t make it a good decision. It just means he has never really understood the situation.
It also means that Mattis is six months late with his resignation. Even handwritten he could have had those 50 copies ready a long time ago. Could it be something other than disagreement with Trump’s decision that made him resign?
No. not really. Trump being a bad leader and horrible strategic thinker is pretty much it.
Looks as if we are leaving. Hoping any equipment we leave behind will still be under the control of the ‘good guys’ in a year. I’m reminded of Viet of the Nam and the tremendous amount of equipment left behind.
Hate to see Mattis go.
Much of that equipment was left behind intentionally, since it was pretty obvious by then that Congress wasn’t going to be giving the S. Vietnamese enough new equipment to make up for losses.