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The tide in the US led war on ISIS has started to turn

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by KingCheetah, Jul 1, 2016.

  1. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    The Iraqis' win over ISIS in Fallujah was considerably easier than expected

    The American-backed Iraqi effort to oust Islamic State militants from their stronghold in Fallujah turned out to be far easier than many U.S. officials initially feared.

    “Once they got through the hard-candy shell and into the chewy center, things went much more quickly,” Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said Monday. “It was really a heavy fight along the front line. But once they penetrated that, it seemed to go very quickly.”

    The five-week operation officially ended Sunday when top Iraqi commanders declared the city "fully liberated" from ISIS.

    Victory in Fallujah highlights the Iraqis' progress, said British Maj. Gen. Doug Chalmers, a deputy commander with the American-led coalition effort known as Operation Inherent Resolve.

    “The Iraqi security forces have learned how to deal with some of these [ISIS] obstacles and how they fight. They have adapted as well,” Chalmers told reporters last week. And, he added, “I think the confidence of those involved was better.”

    Fallujah was the last major ISIS stronghold in Iraq’s al Anbar Province. It was a staging ground for car-bomb attacks on Iraq's capital, making the victory uniquely important for the Baghdad government’s effort to protect itself.

    “It was the last significant piece of territory with proximity to Baghdad,” Davis said.

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  2. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Contributing Member
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    Yes DAESH has been losing on the actual battlefield and that is one reason why they are now ramping up terrorist attacks from far from the frontlines of their state. Unfortunately as things start to collapse there they will get much worse terrorism wise and DAESH will transition into something like Al Qaeda operating out of the shadows and inspiring terrorists attacks globally.
     
  3. fchowd0311

    fchowd0311 Contributing Member

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    ISIS losing ground is absolutely great for the people of Iraq but in reality, this doesn't do much to alleviate tensions of impeding terrorist attacks seeing as most terrorist attacks are lone wolfs who are 'inspired' by ISIS.

    Hopefully it might dissuade some of them because they see ISIS on the loosing side.
     
    #3 fchowd0311, Jul 5, 2016
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2016
    1 person likes this.
  4. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    ISIS has lost nearly 50% of the territory it once held, but it is correct that the terror attacks will increase now that they are losing on battlefield.
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    Islamic State’s days are numbered in Mosul, special U.S. envoy says

    Just days after the Iraqi government announced the recapture of Fallujah from the Islamic State, President Obama’s special envoy in the fight against the terror group said Tuesday that its days occupying Mosul are numbered.

    Though the envoy, Brett McGurk, would not put a timeline on Mosul, he said that plans to retake Iraq’s second-largest city are underway. On top of reclaiming territory in Iraq, Mr. McGurk said, once the operation against the Islamic-State-held city of Manbij in northern Syria is complete, forces can move on to overcoming Raqqa — the militant group’s de facto capital in north-central Syria.

    “We will push them out of Mosul, and we will push them out of Raqqa,” Mr. McGurk told a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “The Manbij operation, it’s ongoing right now, it’s hard fighting. Once that is done, that sets the conditions for Raqqa.”

    Mr. McGurk said the U.S. is moving as quickly as possible to regain important territory, noting that the Islamic State has not reclaimed any significant territory that coalition-backed forces have liberated.

    “We are moving at a tempo that I believe will lead to the ultimate defeat of ISIL,” Mr. McGurk said.

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  5. geeimsobored

    geeimsobored Contributing Member

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    It's good that they're losing territory but the land being recovered is more or less ruined with no infrastructure or semblance of order. In order for the Iraqi government to actually claim some level of authority as a government that can speak for both Sunnis and Shias, they need to build trust which means effective government, law and order, and rebuilding these areas. Otherwise, there will be another ISIS type entity down the road as people once again become disillusioned with the Iraqi government.
     
  6. Cohete Rojo

    Cohete Rojo Contributing Member

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    ISIS took a break during Ramadan. Now they are back.
     
  7. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Contributing Member

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    A tide ebbs and flows.

    Solution? Destroy the moon.
     
  8. Torn n Frayed

    Torn n Frayed Member

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    That's no moon...
     
  9. Air Langhi

    Air Langhi Contributing Member

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    The politicians of Iraq are pretty terrible. They are corrupt. Instead of Saddam whom everyone hated. You have 15-20 guys all trying to gain power. They are pretty much a failed state with or without ISIS.
     
  10. Cohete Rojo

    Cohete Rojo Contributing Member

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    The silver lining of the recent Baghdad carbomb is that they will no longer be using the magic wand...5 years after everyone knew it was crap. Yes, very corrupt.
     
  11. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    Refugees flock back to Syrian town as Isis flees

    Thousands of Syrians are returning to their homes in the strategic town of Manbij after a US-backed Syrian militia wrested it from Isis.

    On Sunday, fighters and civilians celebrated the capture of a town little known outside the country but whose recapture will be a big boost to the ground campaign against the jihadi force.

    The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance dominated by a Kurdish militia, announced the full recapture of Manbij at the end of last week.
    The fighting had raged for more than a month with thousands of residents trapped inside the town. SDF fighters fought street by street under the cover of air strikes by the US-led air campaign and US special forces on the ground.
    Manbij, a town of about 100,000 in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo province, is a significant win for the SDF and the international coalition. In the face of a fierce fightback from Isis fighters, it becomes the first successful battle to retake a jihadi stronghold in Syria.

    The biggest strategic victories against Isis so far have largely taken place in neighbouring Iraq. Though Manbij is not a well-known centre of Isis rule , such as the de facto capital Raqqa or Iraq’s second city Mosul, the town sits on critical routes linking the jihadi force to its last footholds on Syria’s northern border with Turkey. Despite Ankara’s crackdown on the frontier, the border remained a conduit for Isis to the outside world.

    Videos uploaded on Sunday showed residents gathering in the streets with SDF fighters chanting: “Syria is free, free. Isis out, out.” Women ripped off the black head-to-toe cloaks they were forced to wear under Isis rule, and smoked cigarettes in front of local media.

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  12. Dei

    Dei Member

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    Thanks Putin.
     
  13. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    Airstrike Kills ISIS Minister Responsible for Some Execution Videos, Pentagon Says

    An airstrike has killed a senior ISIS leader who, as the group's minister of information, produced some of its gruesome execution videos, the Pentagon announced today. A U.S. official described "Dr. Wa'il" as one of ISIS's top leaders who had special access to ISIS's senior leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

    The confirmed death of "Dr. Wa'il" is the second strike in the last two weeks targeting a senior ISIS leader involved in ISIS's media operation.

    "On September 7, coalition forces conducted a precision strike near Raqqah, Syria, that targeted and killed 'Dr. Wa'il,' also known as Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, one of ISIL's most senior leaders," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement today.

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    U.S. Says It Killed Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, ISIS' Second-in-Command

    The Pentagon said Monday it has confirmed that a U.S. airstrike killed ISIS' second-in-command, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, despite Russia's insistence last month that it was one of its planes that killed him.

    ISIS itself has already said al-Adnani, who also served as the terrorist group's main spokesman, died in the Aug. 30 strike in al-Bab in Syria's devastated Aleppo province.

    Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Monday that "the U.S. precision airstrike" specifically targeted al-Adnani and removed ISIS' "chief propagandist, recruiter and architect of external terrorist operations."

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  14. Buck Turgidson

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    About 90% of what is posted on here has nothing to do with actual happenings in the real world. Serious people would have serious conversations, but even the Rice boys (extra embarrassing since the Baker Institute is there) all full of ****. You guys keep talking to/through/past each other though. That'll solve problems.
     
  15. Air Langhi

    Air Langhi Contributing Member

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    There will just be another alu something or the other. That bomb probably cost more than the value of killing that guy.
     
  16. Pole

    Pole Houston Rockets--Tilman Fertitta's latest mess.

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    Glad to see I'm not the only old cynic here.
     
  17. Buck Turgidson

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    I just watched an incredible interview b/t Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes and the King of Jordan. I'm sure it will be on the CBS website soon, it shouldn't be hard to find and I suggest everyone checks it out. He is an incredibly impressive individual from what I just watched.
     
  18. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    I watched it and while I think Abdullah is a good man and leader there were parts of the interview where he was exaggerating the situation with ISIS too much. The war with ISIS is not WWIII -- everything posted in this thread is accurate -- we are taking out their leaders and occupied cities/ land with increasing frequency and ease.

    ISIS doesn't represent the threat of a superpower like Nazi Germany or Japan of the 1930s -- this is obvious of course, but WWIII is beginning to be thrown out there more and more. Jordan is surrounded by enemy controlled land and has perhaps ten military deaths and 50 causalities -- hardly WWIII numbers after years of war. Abdullah has to speak like this due to the precarious location of his nation, but intelligence indicates ISIS is a shadow of what it was at its peak just a few years ago.
     
  19. Cohete Rojo

    Cohete Rojo Contributing Member

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    The Salafis love to call ISIS takfiri ideology but at the same time have indicated that ISIS is some sort of political response to the US's alliance with Iranian-back Shia political groups in Iraq.

    The true irony is that the Salafis defend the biggest takfiris of all:

     
  20. Dubious

    Dubious Contributing Member

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    I didn't know the Russians were in Iraq.

    But every historian knows wars are won on logistics. Over the long haul no small independent force can withstand sustained attacks from non-threatened Super Powers. They out produce them, out supply them have overwhelming numbers and can replace attrition. ISIS was always suicidal. I assume their desperation is what makes them so brutal.
     

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