Category: Terror War

The two coalition soldiers who were killed last week near Manbij, Syria have been identified as US Special Forces Master Sergeant Johnathan J. Dunbar and UK Special Air Services Sergeant Matt Tonroe;

“Coalition forces, in an advise, assist and accompany capacity with our partners, were conducting a mission to kill or capture a known (Islamic State) member when they were struck by an improvised explosive device,” the U.S.-led coalition said Saturday in a statement to The Associated Press.

Tonroe’s commanding officer, who was not named by the MoD, said the sergeant was a “deeply intelligent man and one of life’s characters”.

“He had a steel core, served his country with pride and was a first class soldier, proven in combat, faced risk willingly and was ever ready for more,” the CO said.

“He thus died as he lived: daring and fearless in duty. We mourn his loss dearly.”

Fox News reports that an American service member was killed in an IED blast which killed one other coalition soldier and injured five others near the mixed Arab-Kurdish town of Manbij on the border between Syria and Turkey.

Mohammed Abu Adel, the head of the Manbij Military Council, an Arab-Kurdish US.-backed group in the town, said the bomb went off hundreds of yards away from a security headquarters that houses the council just before midnight on Thursday.

The wounded personnel received immediate care and are being evacuated for further medical treatment. The names of the deceased will be released at the discretion of the pertinent national authorities.

“The names of the deceased will be released at the discretion of the pertinent national authorities,” the statement read.

Stars & Stripes reports that this is the first combat-related death this year in the war against ISIS;

Eleven U.S. servicemembers have died in noncombat incidents while supporting the anti-ISIS fight in Iraq and Syria this year, including seven Air Force personnel killed earlier this month in a helicopter crash in western Iraq, near the Syrian border.

We talked a bit about the Terrorist who took hostages in a supermarket in Trebes, France yesterday. Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, one of the first officers to respond to the attack, was able to arrange a swap for one of the hostages and he took her place, according to Military.com;

[Beltrame] went inside the supermarket on Friday, he had given up his own weapon and volunteered himself in exchange for a female hostage.

Unbeknownst to the Morocco-born captor, he left his cellphone on so police outside could hear what was happening in the store. They stormed the building when they heard gunshots, officials said. Beltrame was fatally wounded.

His death raises the toll to four. The gunman was also killed, and 15 people were injured in the attack.

“Arnaud Beltrame died in the service of the nation to which he had already given so much,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement. “In giving his life to end the deadly plan of a jihadi terrorist, he fell as a hero.”

According to the statement, Beltrame joined the elite police special forces in 2003 and deployed to Iraq in 2005. He served as a member of the presidential guard and in 2012 earned one of France’s highest honors, the Order of Merit. He was married with no children.

Fox News reports that Israel has finally admitted to that which the world already suspected – that they were the folks who took out the Syrian nuclear reactor in the Deir el-Zour region in the mission entitled Operation Orchard – also known as Operation Outside the Box. It was conducted by F-15s and F-16s of the 69 Squadron as well as support aircraft – as many as eight aircraft, four of which crossed the Syrian frontier.

Israel’s involvement has been one of its most closely held secrets, and it was not immediately clear why Israel decided to go public now. The military would not comment on its reasoning, but the move could be related to the upcoming memoir of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who ordered the strike and has hinted about it for years, or it could be meant as a warning to archenemy Iran, which is active in Syria.

Israel and Syria have always been bitter enemies. Throughout Syria’s seven-year civil war, Israel has carried out well over 100 airstrikes, most believed to have been aimed at suspected weapons shipments destined for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group. Both Iran and Hezbollah are allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Apparently, Israel initially asked the US to bomb the North Korean-inspired reactor and when the Bush Administration refused, Israel took it upon themselves to destroy the facility.

The Washington Post reports that President Trump asked the Saudis for four billion dollars to help shore up victories in Syria to keep the Syrian government from reclaiming the areas and to prevent a resurgence of ISIS fighters as the US tries to disengage from middle east politics.

The Saudis have withdrawn from events in the Levant over the last few years, and Trump is asking them to pull their weight;

The Saudis…are questioning the eye-popping sum even as U.S. officials at one point were drawing up line items totaling $4 billion.

For Trump – who has long railed against insufficient burden-sharing by allies under the U.S. security umbrella – getting others to foot the bill for expensive postwar efforts is important.

A $4 billion Saudi contribution would go a long way toward U.S. goals in Syria that the Saudis say they share, particularly that of limiting Assad’s power and rolling back Iran’s influence. By comparison, the United States last month announced a $200 million donation to the stabilization effort.

At the same time, Trump is eager to get the United States out of a war in which he has already claimed that victory over the Islamic State is near.

Maybe, if our allies had been more willing to put some effort into stabilizing Iraq in 2003, our commitment there would have ended sooner and been less bloody for us. We’ve been doing the heavy lifting for the whole world for more than seventy years, it’s about time we asked for a little help.