Category: Terror War

From the Washington Times, Rowan Scarborough reports that the pentagon is admitting that airstrikes alone won’t prevent more losses to ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State forces in Syria and Iraq.

The Pentagon on Wednesday made the sobering prediction that more towns in Syria and Iraq will fall to the Islamic State in the coming weeks, and that air power alone is not going to be enough to prevent the fall of the Syrian city of Kobani near the Turkish border.

It also raised the prospect of Islamic State terrorists marching on Baghdad, a fear that lawmakers and former top military officials say can only be addressed by ground forces.

Yeah, well as long as those ground forces aren’t US troops, fellas. In fact the Turks are a helluva lot closer than we are, and they don’t seem all that worried about the proximity of ISIS to their own country. In fact, the UN begged them to send troops to Kobani the other day, but I guess they were perfectly comfortable sitting on their hands.

The assessment came before President Obama met with his top military officers and National Security Council at the Pentagon. Mr. Obama emerged to tout his confidence in the progress that coalition efforts are making. He made no note of increasing calls for sending U.S. ground forces, and instead addressed the need to better train and arm Syrian opposition groups that the U.S. hopes will fight the terrorists on the ground.

“This is not something that can be solved overnight,” Mr. Obama said. “Our strikes continue, alongside our partners.”

Since everything turns out completely backwards from the President tells the public, I suppose there are combat forces gearing up right now for their deployment. Personally, I’d prefer Turks because they will be authorized to actually kill the enemy and they won’t be hamstrung by restrictive rules of engagement (ROE) unlike our folks.

The editorial board of the Washington Post, You know, those guys who spent six years opposing US troops on the ground in Iraq and cheered the withdrawal of ground forces from Iraq in 2011, is criticizing the Obama plan for depending on airstrikes alone in that country now;

Why can’t the U.S.-led coalition prevent a ragtag insurgent army from overrunning large towns? The answers speak to the limitations imposed on the military campaign by President Obama as well as the continuing political complications of fighting the Islamic State. Military analysts point out that U.S. strikes on Islamic State forces around Kobane have come late and in small handfuls — not enough, as of Tuesday, to turn back thousands of fighters armed with tanks and artillery. In contrast with the successful 2002 air campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, U.S. pilots cannot rely on Special Forces spotters to identify targets. Mr. Obama has ruled out such ground personnel despite requests from military commanders.

They’re pretty brave with the lives of someone else’s sons’ and daughters’ lives, aren’t they? A year ago last July, the Washington Post’s editorial board recommended just this remedy for the problems that Iraq was facing – still opposing boots on the ground, but now, like our president, when the situation is clearly out of control, they have a solution and it involves more ground forces as if troops are the panacea for all of the world’s ills.

Fox News‘ Catherine Herridge reports that an Air Force father told authorities that, after he posted photos of action over Iraq to his social media, that members of ISIS tracked him down and targeted his son for harassment;

The counterterrorism source said the incident is in line with the recent threat assessment from the Army’s Threat Integration Center that was released in late September. The bulletin warned Army commands worldwide that servicemembers should limit the number of people with access to their social media profiles after ISIS called on its supporters to use the Yellow Pages and Facebook to track down addresses.

While there was no independent intelligence to corroborate the warning in the Army bulletin, the source said “ISIS wanted to find these guys, and inspire someone to go after these guys.”

Many of us here have seen how online terrorists of the non-ISIS variety, with the same mental acuity, have been able to track us and our families. In fact, NHSparky, who sent us the link to the Fox story, has been a victim of just that type of terrorist harassment from our Great Northwest and the Great Southeast. So, be careful what you active duty types post on the social media sites.

Fox News reports that an Illinois man, Mohammed Hamza Khan (those are his parents in the picture leaving the court house yesterday), was arrested at the airport by an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force on the first leg of his journey to Syria to join those fellows in ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State in their struggle to behead children and marry goats, I suppose;

Khan allegedly told his parents in a three-page note that he felt “an obligation” to go to the so-called Sharia law caliphate established by the terrorist group in Syria and Iraq. He said he was upset that, as an adult, he was obligated to pay taxes that would be used to kill his “Muslim brothers and sisters” and that he was angry with society.

“We are all witness that the western societies are getting more immoral day by day,” Khan told his parents, according to the complaint. “I do not want my kids being exposed to filth like this.”

Sources told Fox News authorities acted after a tip from Austrian Airlines regarding Khan’s itinerary.

They should have let him go – now he’ll be some sort of symbol for the rest of the basement dwelling, disillusioned 19-year-olds aching to become lumps of goo in some market far away. Fox News says that he’s facing 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Yeah, time doesn’t heal stupidity. Attach him to a cruise missile and launch him at Syria, make all of his dreams come true.

From USAToday;

FBI agents who questioned Khan at the airport said he acknowledged making contact online with a person, unnamed in the complaint, who gave him the name of a contact who was to take him to ISIL after he arrived in Turkey. Khan told FBI agents he planned to assist ISIL in some type of public service such as a police force, humanitarian work or a combat role, the affidavit said.

The feds should stop making it hard for these goat ropers to leave the country – they’ll get frustrated and start their craft here. let them go, keep a record of their travels and nab them if they make it back.

By the way, Mohammed Hamza Khan seems to be a popular name so if you go on an internet jihad of your own, make sure you have the right guy. Some of you are well known to me and the staff here for making leaps that end up biting us in the ass.

Paul sends us a link to McClatchy which reports that one of the main targets of US airstrikes last month was a French intelligence officer who defected to ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State.

Two European intelligence officials described the former French officer as the highest ranking defector ever to go over to the terrorist group and called his defection one of the most dangerous developments in the West’s long confrontation with al Qaida.

The identity of the officer is a closely guarded secret. Two people, independently of one another, provided the same name, which McClatchy is withholding pending further confirmation. All of the sources agreed that a former French officer was one of the people targeted when the United States struck eight locations occupied by the Nusra Front, al Qaida’s Syrian affiliate. The former officer apparently survived the assault, which included strikes by 47 cruise missiles.

Nimble little shit, ain’t he? TAH has been able to acquire an artist’s rendering of how the defector looks based on exclusive interviews with his former workmates;

Marine corporal Jordan L. Spears was named as the first casualty of the war against ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State when the Department of Defense called off the search for him after he jumped out of an MV-22 Osprey when he thought like it would crash. From CNN;

Asked how Spears death will be classified, Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters the question was still being decided.

“Clearly, that squadron and that ship were in the Gulf, supporting Central Command operations. Some of those operations included operations in Iraq and Syria, at least tangentially, through at least some tangential way, support to those missions,” Kirby said, according to a transcript.

“So there’s no question that — that this Marine’s death is related to the operations that are going on, in some form or fashion.”

Even so, he said he did not know whether the Marine’s death would be formally classified as such. The branch of service typically determines how a service member’s death is classified.

The military has not detailed the Osprey’s mission at the time of the incident, which remains under investigation.

So the word from Associated Press is that Alan Henning was beheaded on video by those fun-loving folks at ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State yesterday. Alan was a cab driver who joined an aid convoy. He was captured shortly after he crossed the Turkish border into Syria;

“Obama, you have started your aerial bombardment of Shams (Syria), which keeps on striking our people, so it is only right that we continue to strike the neck of your people,” the masked militant in the video said.

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The Washington Post speculates that their next victim will be Peter Kassig, a former Army soldier who served in the 75th Ranger Regiment and went to Iraq with them for a few months before he was injured and discharged after about a year and a half in the Army;

Kassig said in an interview published by Time magazine last year that he traveled to the Middle East in 2012 after leaving the Army and while on spring break from Butler University in Indiana. He wanted to learn about the humanitarian crisis in Syria firsthand and see what he could do to raise awareness about it.

In a web page raising funds for his cause, the former soldier said he felt that more could be done to help the Syrians, and thought the most effective way was “through a close connection to those who were in desperate need, by meeting them where they were.”

Peter will be the fifth to be executed by those creatures over there. I wasn’t even aware that there were this many hostages being held over there. Where have I been, or is it the media who doesn’t make a big deal about it until they get their heads chopped off on video?