The situation has indeed gotten very serious:
"US forces kill Islamic State leader in raid in Syria; Islamic State official led oil, gas operations" by Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt New York Times May 17, 2015
WASHINGTON — American Special Operations forces mounted a rare raid into eastern Syria early Saturday, killing a senior leader of the Islamic State and about a dozen militant fighters, as well as capturing his wife and freeing an 18-year-old Yazidi woman who Pentagon officials said had been held as a slave.
It wouldn't be the last one, either.
In the first successful raids by US ground troops since the military campaign against the Islamic State began last year, two dozen Delta Force commandos entered Syria aboard Black Hawk helicopters and V-22 Ospreys and killed Abu Sayyaf. One US military official described him as the Islamic State’s “emir of oil and gas.”
Even so, Abu Sayyaf is a midlevel leader in the organization — one terror analyst compared him to Al Capone’s accountant — and probably is replaceable in fairly short order. And the operation, while successful, comes as the Islamic State has been advancing in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, demonstrating that the fight against the Sunni militant group in both Iraq and Syria remains very fluid.
Related: World War III: Retaking Anbar Province
Yet the Pentagon’s description of a nighttime raid that found its intended target deep inside Syria without any American troops being wounded or killed illustrates not only the effectiveness of the Delta Force, but of improving US intelligence on shadowy Islamic State leaders.
In other words, this is all public relation bullish**. Easy to go kill the guys when they are the ones you trained and have on payroll.
A Defense Department official said Islamic State fighters who defended their building and Abu Sayyaf tried to use women and children as human shields, but that the Delta Force commandos “used very precise fire” and “separated the women and children.” The official said the operation involved close “hand-to-hand fighting.” (The accounts of the raid came from military and government officials and could not be immediately verified through independent sources.)
Now this is starting to smell like stink propaganda.
The US forces eventually entered the building where they found Abu Sayyaf and his wife, Umm Sayyaf, in a room together. His spouse was captured and later moved to a military facility in Iraq, officials said.
Meaning the U.S has bases in Iraq where they still torture people.
The raid came after weeks of surveillance of Abu Sayyaf, using information gleaned from a small but growing network of informants the CIA and the Pentagon have painstakingly developed in Syria, as well as satellite imagery, drone reconnaissance, and electronic eavesdropping, American officials said. The White House rejected initial reports from the region that attributed the raid to forces of President Bashar Assad of Syria.
“The US government did not coordinate with the Syrian regime, nor did we advise them in advance of this operation,” said Bernadette Meehan, the National Security Council spokeswoman. “We have warned the Assad regime not to interfere with our ongoing efforts against ISIL inside of Syria,” she added, using another name for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS.
That would be ISIS™.
Related:
ISIS: Made in Washington, Riyadh – and Tel Aviv
ISIS Is A Fake US/Israeli Created "Terrorist" Group
ISIS is a US-Israel creation to demonize Islam
The Islamic State (ISIS) and Israel are Allies
Why Does ISIS Fit In So Perfectly With The PNAC Plan?
ISIS in Iraq stinks of CIA/NATO ‘dirty war’ op
US-NATO Proxy War in Iraq and Syria: US Financing and Training of “Moderate” ISIS Rebels in Syria
What?
What do you mean "covert CIA/FSA training facilities that have ties to ISIS [are] in both Jordan and Turkey?"
Sure is a good excuse to invade anyplace there is a recalcitrant people.
In a statement early Saturday, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said the killing of Abu Sayyaf dealt a “significant blow” to the group.
Even though he was low on the list and easily replaceable.
The militant leader was said to be involved in the Islamic State’s military operations and helped direct its “illicit oil, gas, and financial operations” that raised the funds necessary for the organization to operate. Officials said the raid was approved by President Obama.
Defense Department officials said the Delta Force soldiers carrying out the raid came under fire soon after they landed near a building used by Abu Sayyaf as his residence in Al Amr.
The commandos had left Iraq aboard the aircraft and were soon on the ground in Al Amr, a Defense Department official said. They came under fire, the official said, and fired back, killing around a dozen Islamic State fighters.
Uh-huh. They were very scrupulous not to hit women and children. Separated 'em in fact.
“The objective was the building, a multistory building,” the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Abu Sayyaf “tried to engage” the commandos, the Defense Department official said, and was shot and killed. The commandos took his wife and the Yazidi woman back to the waiting American aircraft.
I'm starting to wonder if this really happened.
Defense Department officials said only Islamic State fighters had been killed in the mission and said they had received no reports of civilian casualties. But officials acknowledged they were still gathering information on the raid.
Related: US checks report 52 civilians killed in Syria
They are still checking.
The commandos were back in Iraq with the two women around dawn local time, officials said. They said the US forces were able to seize communications equipment and other materials from the site, which might prove useful in intelligence assessments.
Or as a source of future propaganda.
The Yazidi woman, Carter said, will be reunited with her family as soon as possible. It was unclear Saturday what will be done with Umm Sayyaf, who, according to Carter’s statement, is suspected of playing an important role in the group’s activities.
Detained and tortured in international waters like Abu Anas al-Liby.
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At least Jeb Bush will be happy.
Related: ISIS Terrorists: Made in America and paid for by Saudi Arabia and Qatar
You are not supposed to know that.
I don't know whether it is sad or SILLI that the dead ghost is now be connected to Kayla Mueller, but on the more serious side Islamic State militants swept into and were in control of the desert city of Palmyra in central Syria, a victory that gives them another strategically important prize five days after the group seized the Iraqi city of Ramadi.
Palmyra is significant because it sits among gas fields and astride a network of roads across the country’s central desert, putting some of Assad’s opponents in the odd position of hoping that his forces can protect the city, and the ruins as airstrikes began.
Thus it was that ISIS tightened their grip as grisly images showing beheaded bodies on the city’s streets circulated on social media. In addition to the cultural heritage, Palmyra’s environs are rich in gas and oil, potentially boosting the Islamic State’s wealth. Palmyra’s loss is expected to increase pressure on President Bashar Assad, whose forces have been losing ground to other armed groups fighting to overthrow him. The fall of Palmyra received little coverage on Syrian state television.
Although the art was safe and despite US-led coalition aircraft attacks, commercial trucks were allowed to travel to Raqqa, the self-declared capital of the Islamic State in northern Syria, and they returned to Palmyra with fresh produce for the city that has been besieged by the fighting since May 13. The US Defense Department’s statement didn’t specify where the strikes took place. Activists said they heard of no airstrikes in the immediate vicinity of the town, but battles between Islamic State and government forces have continued in a mountainous area with oil fields northwest of the town.
What it means is the U.S. is supporting ISIS while the Syrian army prepares a counteroffensive amid mass massacres to prevent any spillover into Lebanon.
First, they softened ISIS up with airstrikes, even as the Turkish foreign minister said Turkey and the United States have agreed in principle to provide air protection to Syrian rebels being trained and equipped to fight Islamic State militants. The two countries agreed in February to train and equip up to 15,000 Syrians under the $500 million US program designed to add a credible ground force to an air bombing campaign against the militant group.
(What's wrong with Syrian armed forc... oh, right)
And yet I'm told the training is going badly while a ‘‘devastating massacre’’ committed by Syrian army helicopters killed 70, mostly civilians, followed up by more Syrian airstrikes left at least 49 villagers dead; however:
In the northern province of Aleppo, an airstrike by the US-led coalition has killed seven family members, activists and others, the Islamic State said Monday.
The airstrike on the Islamic State-held village of Dali Hassan, south of the Kurdish town of Kobani, was reported by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said an entire civilian family was killed.
Abu al-Hassan Marea, an activist who is in Turkey near the Syrian border, also said he was told by other activists in the area that seven members of the same civilian family were killed.
The Islamic State-affiliated Aamaq news agency reported that a man, his wife, and five children were killed Sunday by two coalition airstrikes that targeted their home in the village.
There was no immediate comment from US officials.
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So now the Zionist War pre$$ is getting its reports directly from ISIS news networks, huh?
"US says airstrikes have killed over 10,000 ISIS fighters; Militants attack Kurdish city in northern Syria" by Bassem Mroue Associated Press June 04, 2015
BEIRUT — A US official said Wednesday that more than 10,000 Islamic State fighters have been killed by American-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in nine months, offering a body count for a campaign that has yet to blunt their advance.
That's about a third of their force and it has done nothing?
Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s figure came after a Paris conference on how to stop the extremists ended without any new strategy to halt their campaign. It also comes months after the Pentagon dismissed such counts as ‘‘simply not a relevant figure’’ in the fight against the Islamic State.
Obviously, the wars are going badly and they needed a public relations release.
Meanwhile, the Islamic State launched a major attack on the predominantly Kurdish city of Hassakeh in northeastern Syria, according to activists and Syrian state media.
Speaking Wednesday to France Inter Radio a day after the Paris conference, Blinken said the airstrikes have been effective.
‘‘We have seen enormous losses for Daesh,’’ Blinken said, using an Arabic acronym for the group. ‘‘More than 10,000 since the beginning of this campaign. That will end up having an effect.’’
Blinken did not offer any figure for civilian casualties.
In September, the CIA said that Islamic State has up to 31,500 fighters, meaning that could represent a loss of a third of its forces. Despite that, the extremists continue to attract more recruits from around the world who come to fight with the group to expand its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
Yeah, and we know who is training them.
It’s not clear why Blinken offered the figure, as the US military in conflicts since the Vietnam War has been either hesitant or discounted such figures as indicators of success. Admiral John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to offer them in January when asked by a reporter.
I think it is quite clear why. War support is nil.
‘‘The less of these guys that are out there, certainly that’s the better, but the goal is to degrade and destroy their capabilities,’’ Kirby said at the time. He added: ‘‘It’s simply not a relevant figure.’’
White House spokesman Josh Earnest, later asked about Blinken’s figure, said he had ‘‘no reason to believe’’ the number was inaccurate, saying 1,000 Islamic State fighters were killed in the fight for the Syrian border town of Kobani alone.
No reason to believe it is accurate, either.
Meanwhile Wednesday, Islamic State militants targeted Hassakeh in an apparent attempt to reverse some of the advances made recently by Kurdish fighters in the northeastern Syrian province. Kurdish fighters have captured dozens of towns and villages there with the help of US-led airstrikes and are getting close to Tel Abyad, a major Islamic State-held border town near Turkey.
The extremists launched the push on the city of Hassakeh, which is split between government forces and Kurdish defenders, on Tuesday night.
Syrian state television said extremists are battling for control of a juvenile prison still under construction on Hassakeh’s southern edge and have so far attacked it with five suicide car bombs.
The TV report said government warplanes have struck the Islamic State stronghold of Shaddadeh, south of Hassakeh. An Islamic State-affiliated Facebook page said the airstrikes on Shaddadeh destroyed seven homes without causing any casualties.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, said another suicide car bomb targeted the city’s power station, causing damage and a power outage.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Syrian air force is also taking part in the battle around Hassakeh and that Islamic State gunmen have entered the prison building. The group said dozens of fighters were killed on both sides, adding that the Islamic State brought reinforcements of about 400 fighters from the nearby province of Deir el-Zour.
Also Wednesday, nine prominent jihadi ideologues issued a fatwa, or religious edict, in which they called on Muslim militants to fight the Islamic State because they have attacked insurgents.
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"US-led coalition unleashes blitz on Islamic State in Syria; Militant group says at least 10 killed in assault" by Zeina Karam Associated Press July 06, 2015
BEIRUT — US-led coalition aircraft unleashed a wave of airstrikes targeting the Islamic State’s stronghold of Raqqa in eastern Syria in what the coalition said Sunday was one of its most sustained aerial operations carried out in Syria to date.
The Islamic State said at least 10 people were killed and many others wounded in the attacks, which activists said triggered successive explosions that shook the city and created panic among residents. The coalition often targets towns and cities held by the militant group, but the overnight strikes on Raqqa were rare in their intensity.
In a statement, the coalition said it carried out 18 airstrikes throughout Raqqa province, destroying a number of Islamic State vehicles and 16 bridges. An earlier statement said the attacks also destroyed vital Islamic State-controlled structures and transit routes in Syria.
‘‘The significant airstrikes tonight were executed to deny Daesh the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq,’’ said coalition spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gilleran, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
‘‘This was one of the largest deliberate engagements we have conducted to date in Syria, and it will have debilitating effects on Daesh’s ability to move’’ from Raqqa, he said.
In a separate development Sunday, Syrian government troops and Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon pushed into the Syrian border town of Zabadani amid heavy airstrikes, continuing an offensive aimed at strengthening their control of routes between Lebanon and Syria.
See: Offensive launched against insurgents
Pushing insurgents out of the mountain town would continue advances aimed at cutting insurgent supply lines to Lebanon and would also be a symbolic victory. Zabadani, a popular weekend getaway from Damascus before the war, was one of the first towns wrested from government control early in the revolt against President Bashar Assad that began in 2011.
Hezbollah, which has intervened on behalf of its ally, the Syrian government, is trying to cement control of the Lebanese frontier. It seeks to stop infiltration by insurgent groups, including the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s arm in Syria.
Raqqa is the de facto capital of the so-called Islamic caliphate declared a year ago by the Islamic State in territories it controls in Iraq and Syria.
The sustained airstrikes add pressure on the militants in Raqqa, still reeling from last month’s loss of the border town of Tal Abyad to Kurdish fighters. The town on the Turkish border was a major avenue for commerce and smuggling for the group.
A militant website said 10 people were killed and dozens of others wounded. An Islamic State-affiliated Facebook page said one civilian was among those killed and 10 were wounded including women and children. It also said the bombing destroyed several bridges.
The Islamic State-affiliated Aamaq news agency released a video of what it said was the effects of shelling Saturday by a US drone on Raqqa. It showed several wounded men on a stretcher and at least three young boys being treated for wounds at what appeared to be a hospital.
A Raqqa-based activist network reported eight civilians were killed by the coalition airstrikes, including a 10-year-old.
The casualty figures could not be independently confirmed.
The network, called Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered, said at least one airstrike targeted a group of Islamic State members in the city center. Another targeted an Islamic State checkpoint while a third destroyed large parts of an Islamic State-held brick factory in the city. It said seven bridges used by civilians inside the city were also destroyed.
In the remote northeastern city of Hassakeh, Islamic State suicide bombers detonated an explosives-laden truck near a main power plant Sunday. State-run news agency SANA reported casualties and damage in the plant on the southern edge of the city.
Fighting has raged in Hassakeh since the Islamic State attacked several southern neighborhoods held by government troops. The violence has forced tens of thousands of residents to flee.
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Related: US checks report 52 civilians killed in Syria
Still checking,
Despite the deaths and airstrikes, a new offensive by the Islamic State began in the northern province of Aleppo that could reshape the battlefield with a coordinated push. As they approached the gates of Hassakeh (the photo brings back memories), the Kurds (how about the map?) fought back and won the town while the coalition carried out airstrikes against militants’ positions in the northern town of Souran. They then tightened their hold on the town and military base.
Nevertheless, Islamic State militants launched swift counteroffensives, massacring more than 200, including women and children, as the newly reorganized insurgents launched a new offensive on government-held areas.
It was then that ISIS resorted to gas bombs:
"Islamic State said to fire chemical shells" New York Times July 18, 2015
NEW YORK — The Islamic State appears to have manufactured rudimentary chemical warfare shells and attacked Kurdish positions in Iraq and Syria with them as many as three times in recent weeks, according to field investigators, Kurdish officials, and a Western ordnance technician who recovered one of the shells.
The development, which the investigators said involved toxic industrial or agricultural chemicals repurposed as weapons, signaled a potential escalation of the group’s capabilities, though it was not entirely without precedent.
Beginning more than a decade ago, Sunni militants in Iraq have occasionally used chlorine or old chemical warfare shells in makeshift bombs against American and Iraqi government forces. And Kurdish forces have claimed militants affiliated with the Islamic State used a chlorine-based chemical in at least one suicide truck bomb in Iraq this year.
The U.S. doesn't scream about like they did when they tried to frame Assad for use.
Firing chemical mortar shells across distances, however, as opposed to dispersing toxic chemicals via truck bombs or stationary devices, would be a new tactic for the group, and would require its munitions makers to overcome a significantly more difficult technical challenge.
In the clearest recent incident, a 120mm chemical mortar shell struck sandbag fortifications at a Kurdish military position near Mosul Dam on June 21 or 22, the investigators said, and caused several Kurdish fighters near where it landed to become ill.
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The simple fact is, it could not have come from Syrian forces, despite the congressional testimony to the contrary (Kuwaiti incubators and the Iraqis, folks).
And the result for the Syrian people of all this?
Syrians have been battered from both sides as the Syrian economy has shrunk by 50 percent over the past four years with the drop in oil production and depreciated currency (U.S. policy has been somewhat of a $ucce$$ there), as 4 million have fled due to poverty and the risk of disease, permanent refugees that will reshape the Middle East and weave themselves into the fabric of life. That's the New World Order goal and purpose for Obama's refugees.
Related:
"Syria, now in its fifth year of armed conflict, is crumbling. Jobs are scarce. Access to medical care is poor. A generation of students has lost years of schooling. Travel is dangerous. The fighting has displaced more than 11 million people. Two-thirds of Syria’s population needs emergency relief assistance, according to the US Agency for International Development. But most international aid agencies have pulled workers out of Syria because of security risks, said Jill Goldenziel, a research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School."
AID = CIA, and speaking of which:
"A spokesman for the Southern Front, which includes elements that receive US aid through a covert CIA program, said the group had taken Al Tha’ala air base days after seizing a major base in neighboring Daraa province....
Abu Muhammed al-Golani, the leader of the Nusra Front, said this week that the group has no plans to attack the West, but he warns of retaliation if US-led airstrikes continue to target its fighters. In an interview with an Arab TV station, Golani denied that the so-called Khorasan group, which Washington says is a special cell in the Nusra Front plotting attacks against Western interests, even exists. Golani said in an interview with the Al-Jazeera TV network aired Wednesday night that ‘‘there is nothing called Khorasan group. We heard this from the Americans only.’’
No coming out party for CIA created ghosts?
Al-nUSrA, Al-CIA-Duh, ISIS, the Southern Front, it's all the same.
What's next, propaganda leaflets?
"President Obama has not pushed hard for the bill lately. And while lawmakers say they don’t want to give up their check on a commander-in-chief’s authority to use military might, they have little interest in having what would be the first war vote in Congress in 13 years. After Obama ordered airstrikes in August over Iraq and in September over Syria against Islamic State militants, lawmakers complained that he was justifying the action with dusty war powers written to authorize conflicts after 9/11. Today, there is hardly a word about it on Capitol Hill. Obama has insisted that he is on firm legal footing in sending more than 4,000 US troops to train and assist Iraqi security forces and launching thousands of airstrikes against targets in Iraq and Syria. But he also has said that he would welcome a new authorization."
Says he doesn't need, but he wants it (Congre$$ complicit either way).
Related: House votes down withdrawal of US military from Iraq, Syria
The new McGovern!
Yup, they won't vote on the active wars but they will by God read over the Iran agreement to prevent peace!
Besides, you don't need a declaration of war to go fight, Amerikan. Just volunteer and the join the holy war. Glory awaits all who do.
UPDATES:
There was oddly nothing on the day I did not blog nor the day I didn't even read the paper.
Then there was this:
"Both groups are accused of being out of touch with the realities in Syria and have almost no following among the myriad of rebel groups fighting on the ground. But....
But what, Globe?
Hadi Bahra, a senior member of the SNC, said the agreement bolsters the unity and position of the opposition. ‘‘It is a message to the international community to exert pressure and discuss seriously how to bring this [Syrian] regime to the table for a political transition,’’ he said."
It's the SAME OLD REGIME CHANGE IDEA being advanced there, nothing more. Pure propaganda with no following to reality on the ground.... and yet it is presented as a serious news article and proposal, with glowing headlines and everything.
And today, nothing.
Also see:
Iraq ousts police chief after huge blast
US defense secretary meets with Kurds
"Carter’s brief, unannounced visit aimed to assess how Baghdad is doing. In a visit to the Iraqi Counterterrorism Service Academy, Carter was briefed on US efforts to train Iraqi special forces. He watched a team of elite soldiers — in all-black uniforms and some with black masks — conduct shooting drills. The unit is regarded as the most skilled of Iraq’s security forces, and the government has relied on it heavily in operations against the Islamic State over the past 18 months.
They are AmeriKan-trained assassination squads, folks -- for an enemy created by US intelligence and its allies, insofar as they exist at all.
The academy’s commander, Major General Falah al-Mohamedawi, thanked Carter for US support in developing Iraqi counterterrorism capabilities. ‘‘God willing, together we will defeat Daesh,’’ Mohamedawi told Carter. ‘‘Yes, we will,’’ the US defense chief replied. In coming months, senior American officials will have to decide whether they will send additional US troops to Iraq or deploy Americans closer to the front lines to ensure Iraqi forces can accelerate their fitful progress against the militants. Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said this week that those forces aimed to ‘‘place a noose around the city and isolate it’’ from militants elsewhere. He said the offensive to retake Ramadi could begin as soon as ‘‘several weeks’’ from now."
What are seeing there is the slow but steady reinsertion of U.S. occupation forces into Iraq, being kept very quiet because the conventional myth and ma$$ media narrative we live under says Obama ended that war.
Related: World War III: Retaking Anbar Province
Going to take how long now?
Meanwhile, the reports from Lebanon are literally garbage.
UPDATE:
"Gunmen ambushed and killed a Palestinian official in a refugee camp in southern Lebanon Saturday, Lebanese security officers said. Talal al-Urduni, a senior security official with the Palestinian Fatah movement, died along with his bodyguard after they were attacked near a hospital in the camp. Officials said that Islamic extremists in the camp were probably behind the assassination. Ein el-Hilweh is Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp and it is a haven for militants and fugitives."
Well, I guess Israel will just have to go in there and clean things out to the banks to the Litani.
