This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Terror War

  • 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit deploys more Marines to Iraq

    26th Marine Expeditionary Unit deploys more Marines to Iraq

    last convoy out of Iraq

    The Marine Corps Times reports that the 26th MEU is deploying more Marines to Iraq from the Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group in the wake of the rocket attack near Makhmur, Iraq where Staff Sergeant Louis Cardin was killed the other day;

    Makhmur is also where the Nineveh Operations Center is located. It is a primary base from which the U.S. can support Iraqi forces when they eventually try to retake Mosul, which fell to the Islamic State in June 2014. Iraqi military leaders plan to deploy about 4,500 troops to the area for the upcoming operation.

    Hundreds of Marines have been quietly deploying to Iraq over the past 16 months to assist Iraqis fighting to retake territory from ISIS militants.

    Ain’t it funny how that mission just creeps up on you. No matter how hard you try not to fight a war, eventually, you have to fight it the way you should have fought it in the first-damn-place

  • One Marine Killed, Several Wounded in Iraq

    Fox News is reporting that one Marine has been killed and several others injured by indirect fire in Iraq.  They were reportedly injured by an ISIS rocket that landed near their position in Makhmur, a town approximately 75 miles southeast of Mosul.

    A US defense official termed the attack “a lucky strike by ISIS”.  Names of the individual killed, those injured, and the exact number injured have not yet been released by DoD.  The casualty total (KIA + WIA) is believed to be 5 or less.

    The profession of arms is not without risk, whether in peace or war.  But as I’ve said elsewhere, no place in a bona fide combat zone is truly safe.  IDF doesn’t care where you are, what your MOS/specialty might be, or what you’re doing.  It’s a true equal opportunity threat.

    May God comfort the family, friends, and professional colleagues of the departed, and may He grant speedy and complete healing to those injured.

  • Obama to Pentagon; defeat ISIS this year

    Obama to Pentagon; defeat ISIS this year

    last convoy out of Iraq

    Chief Tango sends us a link to an article at The Hill by our buddy, Kristina Wong in which she reports that Ashton Carter, the Defense Secretary, told reporters at a Politico event, that the President has told him that he wants ISIS defeated before Obama leaves office so the next president doesn’t have to deal with the problem;

    “That’s what he said he wants. That’s what he told me and [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford]. He said, ‘Get this done as soon as possible. I’d like to not leave this to my successor,’ ” Carter said Friday an event hosted by Politico.

    He added that Obama called for the process to be accelerated last fall — about a year after the U.S. first began its counter-ISIS campaign.

    The administration now has only nine months left, but Carter said he’s optimistic.

    “I’m confident that we’ll do it. And we have an operational plan now,” he said.

    Yeah, that’s all they have to do – want something to happen and it’s done. Of course, the way that they get muddled reports from the Pentagon on the prosecution of the war, the White House may believe that ISIS is defeated long before ISIS believes they’re defeated.

    Meanwhile, another American servicemember has been killed during a rocket attack on a base in northern Iraq, according to AFP;

    The latest fatality came after an indirect fire rocket attack on a base at Makhmur, CNN said, citing a US official and saying that a “small number” of other American troops were wounded in the attack.

    It was not exactly clear how many and the Pentagon spokesman declined to give further details.

  • Kerry sees ISIS genocide

    Kerry sees ISIS genocide

    kerrypinkbike01

    The Associated Press reports that John Kerry our Secretary of State is set to announce that which we all know – that ISIS is committing genocide in Syria and Iraq;

    Kerry’s finding, set to be announced Thursday, will not obligate the United States to take additional action against IS militants and does not prejudge any prosecution against its members, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly preview Kerry’s decision.

    A day after the State Department said Kerry would miss the March 17 deadline, the officials said Kerry had completed his review and determined that Christians, Yazidis and Shiite groups are victims of genocide. The House this week passed a nonbinding resolution by a 393-0 vote condemning IS atrocities as genocide.

    Apparently, Kerry’s report will trigger a tersely-worded letter from the UN. The last tiem this happened was in 2004 when Colin Powell determined that there was genocide being committed in Darfur – that disaster came to a screeching halt, didn’t it? What? It didn’t? Oh, well.

    n that case, the lawyers decided that the 1948 U.N. Convention against genocide did not require countries to prevent genocide from taking place outside their territory. Powell instead called for the U.N. Security Council to appoint a commission to investigate and take appropriate legal action if it agreed with the genocide determination.

    I’m sure this time will be different.

    His determination, however, does not carry the legal implication of a verdict of guilt or conviction on genocide charges, the officials said. Such decisions will be left to international or other tribunals.

    ISIS will immediately recognize that what they’re doing is wrong and stop murdering innocent people so they don’t get on John Kerry’s wrong side.

    Thanks to 3E9 for the link.

  • Yet More Idiocy at DHS

    Remember the San Bernardino shootings? You know, that cold-blooded terrorist massacre perpetrated by a US citizen and his foreign-born spouse?  The spouse who DHS allowed to enter the country in in spite of the fact that she’d made social media postings supporting violent jihad; where DHS didn’t bother even to check her social media posts because it was against DHS policy to do so; and who DHS never interviewed in person as required under Federal law before allowing them to immigrate?

    Well, looks like this one gets “curiouser and curiouser” still with respect to DHS’s actions.

    The two dead terrorists who perpetrated that attack got their weapons from a straw buyer – Enrique Martinez – who was a friend of the husband. The FBI determined this shortly after the attack.

    Martinez had a scheduled interview at the San Bernardino US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office the day after the attack. FBI officials found out about that interview; they requested that their LE counterparts at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detain Martinez as a person of interest so that they could interview him about the matter.

    Unfortunately, that didn’t go too well.

    When the ICE agents went to the San Bernardino USICS office as requested by the FBI, they were refused entry. They were unable to detain Martinez.

    Yeah, you read that right.  The Federal personnel running that ICS office refused to allow Federal LE personnel acting at the request of the FBI to enter their facility and detain a person of interest in a terrorism case.

    Tell me that isn’t evidence of a seriously out-of-whack set of priorities.  In my book, when Federal immigration services personnel start ignoring requests from Federal LE to detain persons of interest in terrorist attacks something is seriously effed up.

    Fox News has an article with more details.  It’s worth reading.

    Sounds like “you got some ‘splainin’ to do”, Secretary Johnson.  Or maybe that should read “you got lots more ‘splainin’ to do”.

  • Happy accident

    AW1Ed sends us a link to Stars & Stripes which reports that more than 10 Islamic State militants accidentally blew themselves up while transporting an explosive device to their planned site for its detonation;

    “They were attempting to move an IED (improvised explosive device) to a crowded area of Achin, but it went off before they reached the planned place,” said Attaullah Khogyani, spokesman for Nangarhar province’s provincial governor.

    Twenty-one other militants were wounded, Khogyani said. There were no civilian casualties.

    ISIS flags will be flown at half mast throughout Dearborn, Michigan to mark the sad occasion.

  • “Allah told me to come here and kill people”

    Yesterday, a man walked into a Canadian armed forces recruiting station in Toronto. He attacked one member of the Canadian military, first striking and then slashing his victim’s arm. He then attempted to slash another member of Canada’s military before he was subdued.

    This article’s title is the reason the attacker gave for his attack.

    Fox News has a brief article about attack and the attacker’s day in court. It’s worth reading.

    Now, some tell us that US policy in the Middle East is to blame for current Islamic terrorism. Sorry, but I’m not buying that. Last time I checked, Toronto wasn’t in the US.

    Then again London, Madrid, and Paris aren’t in the US either; neither is Mumbai, Bali, northern Nigeria, or Nairobi. But that same inane rationale (“It’s the USA’s fault!”) was offered by some to explain those attacks by radical Islamic terrorists, too.

    I’m thinking US policy isn’t the reason at all. Instead, I’m thinking that Samuel Huntington may well have been correct when he proposed his Clash of Civilizations hypothesis over 20 years ago.

    But that’s just me.

  • US citizen captured by peshmerga

    US citizen captured by peshmerga

    Khweis Mohammed Jamal

    Reuters reports that an American citizen fighting for ISIS was surrounded and captured by peshmerga forces in Iraq. They say that he has an American driver’s license in the name of Khweis Mohammed Jamal and that he speaks English and broken Arabic, but that he was dressed in black.

    [Two Kurdish officers, one of whom arrested him]said it appeared the man was intending to escape both Islamic State and Kurdish forces but handed himself in after peshmerga fighters opened fire on him near the frontline in the village of Golat.

    Captain Daham Khalaf said they had spotted the fighter hiding in long grass around dawn and waited until the sun rose before surrounding him: “He shouted ‘I am a foreigner’,” Khalaf said, describing him as bearded and dressed in black.

    I guess he wasn’t having a good time with the boys of ISIS and his intention was to escape from the group. I suppose man-love Thursdays were a real pain in the ass. Peshmerga say that they fed him and then turned him over to intelligence folks in the neighborhood.

    The New York Times says that the 27-year-old was born in Virginia. The Kurdish news says that he went to Syria two months ago and that he was trying to get to Turkey when he got disoriented and ended up in Kurdistan.