Showing posts with label U.S. Air Strikes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. Air Strikes. Show all posts

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Growing in strength!

January 03, 2015 Iraq , Islamic State 0 Comments
ISIS Alive And Well--Faces No Threat To Their Existence
Jonathan Spyer, Sep. 4, 2014, Jerusalem Post

This week, the siege on the city of Amerli was lifted by Iraqi and Shi’ite militia forces, paving the way for the reconquest of Salahuddin province. The advance was preceded by US air strikes on Islamic State positions in the town.

The Peshmerga has also had a good few days. The strategic Mosul dam was recaptured in late August, in a joint operation with Iraqi forces; this week, the town of Zumar was retaken.

Read more: www.jpost.com
Photo via Flickr

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Thursday, October 23, 2014

Hopefully we got more than just the flag

Hopefully we got more than just the flag

October 23, 2014 Bombing , ISIS 0 Comments
ISIS Flag Planted, Mountain Bombed
Oct. 23, 2014
A video posted by Washington Free Beacon (@washingtonfreebeacon) on


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Monday, October 13, 2014

Now what, Mr. President?

October 13, 2014 ISIS , NBC News 0 Comments
NBC War Correspondent: ISIS Is 'NOT Being Degraded'


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Sunday, October 12, 2014

Mr. President, now what?

October 12, 2014 Independent.co.uk , ISIS 0 Comments
War Against Isis: US Strategy In Tatters As Militants March On
By Patrick Cockburn, Oct. 12, 2014, Independent.co.uk

America's plans to fight Islamic State are in ruins as the militant group's fighters come close to capturing Kobani and have inflicted a heavy defeat on the Iraqi army west of Baghdad.

The US-led air attacks launched against Islamic State (also known as Isis) on 8 August in Iraq and 23 September in Syria have not worked. President Obama's plan to "degrade and destroy" Islamic State has not even begun to achieve success. In both Syria and Iraq, Isis is expanding its control rather than contracting.

Isis reinforcements have been rushing towards Kobani in the past few days to ensure that they win a decisive victory over the Syrian Kurdish town's remaining defenders. The group is willing to take heavy casualties in street fighting and from air attacks in order to add to the string of victories it has won in the four months since its forces captured Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, on 10 June. Part of the strength of the fundamentalist movement is a sense that there is something inevitable and divinely inspired about its victories, whether it is against superior numbers in Mosul or US airpower at Kobani.

In the face of a likely Isis victory at Kobani, senior US officials have been trying to explain away the failure to save the Syrian Kurds in the town, probably Isis's toughest opponents in Syria. "Our focus in Syria is in degrading the capacity of [Isis] at its core to project power, to command itself, to sustain itself, to resource itself," said US Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken, in a typical piece of waffle designed to mask defeat. "The tragic reality is that in the course of doing that there are going to be places like Kobani where we may or may not be able to fight effectively."

Read the full story:  www.independent.co.uk

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Saturday, October 11, 2014

Understatement to say the least

Understatement to say the least

October 11, 2014 Iraq , ISIS 0 Comments
WaPo: U.S.-led Air War Off To A Difficult Start

By Liz Sly, Oct. 10, 2014, Washingtonpost.com



REYHANLI, Turkey — The U.S.-led air war in Syria has gotten off to a rocky start, with even the Syrian rebel groups closest to the United States turning against it, U.S. ally Turkey refusing to contribute and the plight of a beleaguered Kurdish town exposing the limitations of the strategy.

U.S. officials caution that the strikes are just the beginning of a broader strategy that could take years to carry out. But the anger that the attacks have stirred risks undermining the effort, analysts and rebels say.

The main beneficiary of the strikes so far appears to be President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces have taken advantage of the shift in the military balance to step up attacks against the moderate rebels designated by President Obama as partners of the United States in the war against extremists.

Read the full story:  www.washingtonpost.com

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Tuesday, September 30, 2014

No U.S. boots=bad coordination

September 30, 2014 Josh Rogin , Obama Administration 0 Comments
Exclusive: America’s Allies Almost Bombed In Syrian Airstrikes

F-4 Phantom / U.S. Air Force
By Josh Rogin, Sept. 30, 2014, Thedailybeast.com

The White House says it wants to work with Syria’s moderate rebels. But warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition came awfully close to striking one of their HQs.

Last week, an airstrike from the American-led coalition nearly hit a command-and-control facility affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, the moderate rebels the Obama administration says are America’s “boots on the ground,” according to two opposition leaders. They are asking the Obama administration to please coordinate with them in the future before America bombs its only allies in Syria.

Since U.S. airstrikes against ISIS in Syria began on Sept. 22, there has been no coordination between the U.S. military and its alleged partners on the ground, according to FSA leaders, civilian opposition leaders, and intelligence sources who have been briefed on the U.S. and allied military operation. It’s this lack of communication that led to an airstrike that hit only 200 meters from an FSA facility in the suburbs of Idlib. One source briefed on the incident said multiple FSA fighters were killed in the attack.

“Unfortunately, there is zero coordination with the Free Syrian Army. Because there is no coordination, we are seeing civilian casualties. Because there is no coordination, they are hitting empty buildings for ISIS,” Hussam Al Marie, the spokesman for the FSA in northern Syria, told The Daily Beast.

Read the full story:  www.thedailybeast.com

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Tuesday, September 23, 2014

News will calm Obama anti-war critics

September 23, 2014 al-Qaeda , Iraq 0 Comments
Al-Qaida Group Was In 'Final Stages' Of Planning Attacks Against West 

USS Arleigh Burke / /U.S. Navy via Getty Images
By Marina Koren, Sept. 23, 2014, Nationaljournal.com

The U.S. launched eight airstrikes Monday night against a little-known, al-Qaida-affiliated militant group in Syria.

The United States Central Command said Tuesday morning that American forces hit the Khorasan Group near Aleppo to stop "imminent attack-planning against the United States and Western interests." At a Pentagon press briefing shortly after, defense officials explained just how imminent such an attack may have been.

"The intelligence reports indicated that the Khorasan Group was in the final stages of plans to execute major attacks against Western targets and potentially the U.S. homeland," said Lt. Gen. William Mayville, the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

U.S. strikes hit the group's "training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communications building, and command and control facilities," according to a Pentagon statement released Tuesday morning.

Little is known about the Khorasan Group, which the Pentagon said has "established a safe haven in Syria to develop external attacks, construct and test improvised explosive devices, and recruit Westerners to conduct operations." As The Washington Post's Terrence McCoyexplained Tuesday:

Read the full story:  www.nationaljournal.com

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