Capitol Of ISIS 'Caliphate' Falls, America Yawns
Raqqa, the self proclaimed capitol city of the Islamic caliphate designated by the so called "Islamic State" , ISIS, has fallen to a coalition of Kurds and various Arab and regional militia groups. ISIS is almost defunct as a "state" .
This momentous news was barely a story in American media over the past few days. The moving hand of time has writ and moved on in terms of US interest in the thing.
Weird.
============
RAQQA, Syria — U.S.-backed militias in Syria declared victory over Islamic State in its capital Raqqa on Tuesday, raising flags over the last jihadist footholds after a four-month battle.
The fighting was over and the alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias was clearing the city's stadium of mines and any remaining militants, said Rojda Felat, commander of the Raqqa campaign for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). A formal declaration of victory in Raqqa will soon be made, once the city has been cleared of mines and any possible Islamic State sleeper cells, said SDF spokesman Talal Selo.
In Washington, the U.S. military said that about 90 percent of Raqqa had been retaken from Islamic State but it expected the SDF to face pockets of resistance.
The fall of Raqqa, where Islamic State staged euphoric parades after its string of lightning victories in 2014, is a potent symbol of the jihadist movement's collapsing fortunes. Islamic State has lost much of its territory in Syria and Iraq this year, including its most prized possession, Mosul. In Syria, it has been forced back into a strip of the Euphrates valley and surrounding desert.
The SDF, backed by a U.S.-led international alliance, has been fighting since June to take the city which Islamic State used to plan attacks abroad. A Reuters witness said militia fighters celebrated in the streets, chanting slogans from their vehicles. The fighters and commanders clasped their arms round each other, smiling, in a battle-scarred landscape of rubble and ruined buildings around the main square.
The flags in the stadium and others waved in the city streets were of the SDF, its strongest militia the Kurdish YPG, and the YPG's female counterpart, the YPJ. Fighters hauled down the black flag of Islamic State, the last still flying over the city, from the National Hospital near the stadium.
Tags
Who is online
283 visitors
Must be no money in it for trump over there.
ISIS is the real threat to world peace - chicagonow.com
Jul 18, 2014 · ISIS is the real threat to world peace. ... , July 18, 2014 at 8:28 pm ... ISIS is the biggest threat the Middle East has today.
ISIS Has Now Become a Truly Global Threat - Time
Paris and Belgium attacks suggest a network of ISIS ... seizing large areas in Iraq and Syria in 2013 and 2014 , ISIS set itself ... Iraq's second largest ...
Americans See ISIS As Biggest Threat To US: Poll
World . Americans See ISIS As Biggest Threat To US: Poll. By IBTimes UK On 02/15/15 AT 2:22 AM. ... June 30, 2014 . Photo: REUTERS/Stringer ...
ISIS is the Biggest Threat to the World (1) | Al Nusra ...
ENGR.ALI HASSAN ISIS is the biggest threat to this world 1. Introduction 2. A brief history of ISIS 3. ... In 2013 and 2014 . mere for their own goals.
Lucky trump got out of the way of his generals and let them win the war.
All this was in the works before Trump took office.
He didnt even want to retake Mosul.
This battle was won by the SDF-- not American generals.
Who are the SDF?
The Syrian Democratic Forces commonly abbreviated as SDF or QSD, are a multi-ethnic and multi-religious alliance of Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian/Syriac militias, as well as some smaller Turkmen, Armenian, Circassian and Chechen groups/participation[80] in the Syrian Civil War.[81]
The SDF is mostly composed of, and militarily led by, the People's Protection Units (YPG), a mostly Kurdish militia.
[82]According to the Pentagon, Kurds made up 40% of the SDF and Arabs 60% in March 2017, although other sources estimate the Arab components of the SDF to be at a significantly lower number.[83]Founded in October 2015, the SDF states its mission as fighting to create a secular, democratic and federal Syria, along the lines of the Rojava Revolution in northern Syria. The updated December 2016 constitution of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria names the SDF as its official defence force.[84]
This is some rarely seen good news from the ME these days. Unfortunately ISIS still seems to be recruiting new blood by means of the intenet, such as "lone wolves" who carry out Jihad in western countries.
Yes-- this is mainly good news, but part of it is bad news.
One of the ways ISIS recruits is by showing their success in conquering territory-- which they did (very rapidly) in their early days in the Middle East. . But for a while now they have been having one defeat after another in Iraq & Syria. (Part of this has been due to the U.S. military being allowed to be more aggressive...)
So what they've done is really step up their activities elsewhere. (For example, all the vehicle ramming attacks in Europe...mostly France..some the U.K. etc),
But its not only in western countries. They are active in Africa. Previous barbaric jihadi groups who were independent have now become part of ISIS-- Boko Haram in Nigeria. Al Shabaab in Somalia (although that's mostly al Qaeda, not ISIS apparently they are not coordinating with ISIS).
And ISIS is now active far from the Middle East-- for example Abu Sayyaf-- all the way over in the Philippines!
Philippines : Last Leaders Of ISIS-Tied Siege Killed
Somalia: Terror Attack - Over 300 Dead
Make no mistake, this is our new cold war.
Unfortunately i see no end in sight for this one.
Tough to stop that sort of determined fanaticism
God forbid the media should share some good news these days.
CNN CEO: All right everyone! Break's over. Get back to Harvey Weinstein or Russia - the stuff we're sure Americans really want to hear about.
This is great news, and the winning coalition that achieved the victory deserve all congratulations.
This is excellent news, but the war is not over.
Yeah well, JV games never were all that interesting don't you think?