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Sunday, September 06, 2015

Pentagon Not Targeting Islamic State Training Camps

No airstrikes against 60 camps producing 1,000 fighters monthly

The Pentagon has not conducted airstrikes against an estimated 60 Islamic State (IS) training camps that are supplying thousands of fighters each month to the terror group, according to defense and intelligence officials.

The camps are spread throughout Islamic State-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria and are off limits in the U.S.-led international bombing campaign because of concerns about collateral damage, said officials familiar with planning and execution of the yearlong bombing campaign.

Additionally, the IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) camps have been so successful that Islamic State leaders are considering expanding the camps to Libya and Yemen. Both states have become largely ungoverned areas in recent years.

The failure to target the training camps with U.S. and allied airstrikes is raising questions among some defense and intelligence officials about the commitment of President Obama and his senior aides to the current anti-IS strategy of degrading and ultimately destroying the terror group.

“If we know the location of these camps, and the president wants to destroy ISIS, why are the camps still functioning?” one official critical of the policy asked.

Read more here

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Has anyone else seen photos of Syrian refugees in the Mediterranean Sea? One that haunts me is a mother holding her infant above the water. I don't know if they survived, and that haunts me, too, because the US's (in)actions in that region helped to create this mess.

Anonymous said...

They're so interested in "cutting the head off the beast", i.e., only targeting the alleged leaders of ISIS, that they're missing the entire point, which is to eliminate ISIS altogether.
ISIS is clearly identified as an open threat to the U.S. and the World and to do nothing to destroy the identified training camps seems foolish and ineffective on its face.

Anonymous said...

Our president is afraid of harming his relatives in those strikes

Anonymous said...

Sadly I don't believe our President is willing to stop ISIS.

Anonymous said...

There here in michagan and upstate NY.and obama is treasonous.

Anonymous said...

lol...it's simple. Military Industrial Complex. You know how easy it'd be to wipe the estimated 20-30K ISIS fighter's off the map? It'd be done in hours. But, you don't get increased funding that way, do you? It's all about money folks, that's what it comes down to.

Anonymous said...

We have the assets, we have the intel, we have the desire. What we don't have is permission.

Anonymous said...

Self defense needs no permission.

lmclain said...

11:13....we, meaning Obama, do NOT have the "desire".

If we did they'd already be dead. And what is "collateral damage" mean when we are talking about training camps in the desert? The cook gets killed?? We light up a single house in a densely packed neighborhood and brag that the house next door was untouched. The next day we worry about collateral damage???
Maybe if we started DOING some collateral damage, they wouldn't be so quick to hang around those camps.
10:49 nailed it.
Keep cheering.

Anonymous said...

Obama and the country of Turkey are not going to really stop ISIS because they want to use them to topple the Syrian regime. It's just a bonus to both of them that Christians and rival muslims are being murdered. ISIS will not be stopped until we get a non-Muslim president as Commander and Chief of the armed forces.

Anonymous said...

Obama's half brother is the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, his 1st. cousin is a member of ISIS, his half sister is a member of the Black Panthers, yet the Media won't report on this!

Anonymous said...

200-Lay off the drugs.

Anonymous said...

2:55--
Sheeple, open your eyes

Anonymous said...

Awwww obama is posting on sbynews.

Anonymous said...

10:45, you must mean, "There hear..."

sarc/ off

Anonymous said...

Just why the hekk not?