ISIS Regroups

| August 7, 2019

If you recall, when Pres. Trump said he was planning to withdraw troops from Syria, GEN Mattis (Ret.) disagreed, and then left the building.

Well, ISIS is on the move again.  https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/08/06/report-isis-has-been-rebuilding-as-us-troops-withdraw-from-syria/

From the article:  Since about half of 2,000 special operations and other train-advise-assist forces returned to the U.S. in the spring, ISIS has been staging a comeback, according to an inspector general report from DoD, the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development released Tuesday.

“This quarter, ISIS continued is transition from a territory ? holding force to an insurgency in Syria, and it intensified its insurgency in Iraq,” Pentagon Principal Deputy Inspector General Glenn Fine, who has been filling in as DoD IG, wrote in a memo topping off the report. – article.

There have been many, many pockets of ISIS that hid out in Sunni-friendly areas, regrouping for another strike.

From the article: There are likely between 14,000 and 18,000 remaining active members of ISIS, but according to the report, estimates have swung widely in both directions.

ISIS’s regrouping and rebuilding has taken several forms, the report found, mostly in remote areas controlled by local forces with little capacity to stabilize their areas of operations.

In Iraq, particularly, militants have worked to create safe havens in Sunni-majority areas north and west of Baghdad, the report said. – article.

In addition, Turkey is planning to move into Syria to attack Kurdish forces.  https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2019/08/07/turkish-military-move-into-syria-is-high-risk/

From the article:  “ISTANBUL — Turkey’s combative president is threatening to launch a military operation in northeastern Syria that is designed to push back U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish forces — an invasion that carries major risks for a highly combustible region in war-devastated Syria.

An operation would mark the third Turkish incursion into Syria in the past four years — all seeking to limit the growing influence of Syrian Kurdish fighters, which Turkey views as terrorist along its border. Turkish and American military officials were meeting Monday and Tuesday in Ankara for last-ditch negotiations amid warnings from Turkish officials about a military buildup.” – article

And the Fat Lady hasn’t sung yet. We’ve already evacuated non-essential embassy staff from Baghdad. The problem is that historically, there is no such thing as an “end to the war” in the Middle East. The history of the Middle East and warfare goes back much further than 19th and 20th century wars – considerably further, back to the Sumerian Empire in the 24th century BCE.  Pres. Trump said he would bring US troops out of the MIddle East, which is what he’s doing, but GEN Mattis disagreed with his strategy.

So now what?

Category: Foreign Policy, Iraq, Syria

20 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
SFC D

Middle eastern warfare goes back all the way to Cain and Abel. There’s been no peace there ever since.

Yef

18k?

12k is the earliest date I have seen, and only in the middle east, which was much more fertile back then.

11B-Mailclerk

Depends on what one considers “agriculture”.

Habitually discarding seeds near one’s hut eventually lead to “Kinda cool these yummie things just grow where we dump stuff we can’t eat. Hey, maybe we should, like, drop the uneatable bits in neat rows and cover them up to keep the birds from eating them.”

There isn’t a real clear archeological line between casual and deliberate gardening, until it gets rather large.

Herbs and berries probably come first, then cultivated eventually are grass-based cereal crops. Then someone figures out how to dry and store grain.

The size and shape of communities take a big leap at the “graineries” point.

Fyrfighter

Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure..

Anonymous

Carthaginian peace seems to be an attention-getter there.

HMCS(FMF) ret

5th/77th FA

Those people will try to kill one another whether we are there or not.

Enough is enough! Get. the. fuck. out. NOW!!!

SFC D you nailed it!

Anonymous

Here we go some more…

AW1Ed

These clowns are getting funded from somewhere. Find that and shut it down; they’ll wither on the vine.

reddevil

ISIS is Sunni. Iran is Shia. They hate each other.

OldSoldier54

The Saudi’s are the Sunni sugar-daddies of record.

JTB

Let them congregate then MOAB….

JarHead Pat

Enough is enough, its bad enough we are still taking care of all the NATO humps, they will kill each other until there is nobody left..

NR Pax

Take the approach Kim du Toit presented in “Let Africa Sink.”

PFM

As someone who was in Mosul in 2004-5 and then watched it fall ten years later on the news – thinking about all of the time, money and lives we wasted earlier, I have to think that we need to get out now. If the Iraqis are still as corrupt and inept as they were 15 (and especially 10 when I was in Baghdad) years ago, we definitely need to beat it.

docduracoat

The Turks plan to push the YPG out of the areas they fought for.
Then push all the Syrian refugees currently in Turkey into that area.
That will radically alter the ethnic make up of the area, converting it from an anti terror Kurdish area into a pro Isis and Al Queda Sunni area.
This sis a major test of whether the U.S. will abandon its indigenous allies after their short term use is over.
It did not work out well for the Vietnamese Hmong, or the Iraqi interpreters.
If I were a local militia leader, I would think twice about allying with the Americans
The U.S. track record ir pretty poor

USMC Steve

I might suspect if they really want to screw about with the kurds, that they will bleed a whole bunch, and lose. Those folks are serious, dedicated and not to be messed with. In engagements btwn turks and Kurds so far, the turks have not done well.