{"id":83646,"date":"2018-12-21T15:00:04","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T19:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=83646"},"modified":"2018-12-21T14:55:29","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T18:55:29","slug":"update-on-isis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=83646","title":{"rendered":"Update on ISIS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
EA-6B stern aspect<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The following is the latest news on ISIS, as of this morning.<\/p>\n

ISIS has been stuck in one small area on the Iraq-Syria border for over a year. It’s something CNN and the other, more blighted newsfeeds don’t relay to the public.<\/p>\n

They were in a pocket around Hajin, being faced by Iraqi and Syrian and Kurdish troops.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/12\/09\/world\/middleeast\/isis-territory-syria-iraq.html<\/a><\/p>\n

They aren’t completely obliterated, no. Per that NYT article, they may or may not have about 20,000 to 30,000 in Iraq and Syria, as the CIA estimated in 2014. Some self-identified IS supporter says there are more in hidden places. That\u2019s entirely possible, but both of those are hearsay, not hard evidence.<\/p>\n

In fact, Kurdish forces on Dec.14 seized control of Hajin, along with Syrian Democratic Forces:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2018\/12\/14\/syrian-forces-backed-us-airstrikes-take-last-big-islamic-state\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Many were killed in US-led airstrikes, which have not stopped. The successful efforts of local ground forces (Kurds, Iraqi and Syrian) should relieve the 2,000 US special operatives on the ground of the necessity of staying in locus, allowing them to return to the USA.<\/p>\n

Nothing was said about ending US airstrikes.<\/p>\n

While there may be isolated jihadi groups here and there, such as those who claimed responsibility for the Christmas attacks in Paris a year ago, the evidence provided indicates that ISIS has been effectively choked as a mass force. No doubt, the guerrilla tactics of blindsiding people with bomb attacks in subway stations or going into soccer stadia and shooting groups of people, or murdering two Scandinavian girls who were backpacking this past week in Morocco , a relatively safe tourist area, will continue. That is how they operate.<\/p>\n

But Hajin is\/was their last stronghold and it is gone.<\/p>\n

The Middle East has a history of warfare that dates as far back as 15,000 yeras, further back than when Sennacherib stole the statue of Marmuk from a temple and died of drinking plague-contaminated water. It has never been anything other than a battlefield<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The war with ISIS is a continuation of what started long, long ago and has never stopped. If they are reduced to a few hate-filled crowd bombers and manage to wipe out whatever is left of them, something else will rise to take their place.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is the latest news on ISIS, as of this morning. ISIS has been stuck … Update on ISIS<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":653,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[307],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-isis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}