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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: ISIS an 'Incredible' Fighting Force, US Special Ops Sources Say ABC News With the Obama White House left reeling from the "savage" slaughter of an American journalist held hostage by ISIS terrorists, military options are being considered against an adversary who officials say is growing in strength and is much more capable than the one faced when the group was called "al Qaeda-Iraq" during the U.S. war from 2003-2011. ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has been making a "tactical withdrawal" in recent days in the face of withering U.S. airstrikes from areas around Erbil in northern Iraq and from the major dam just north of Mosul it controlled for two nail-biting weeks, according to military officials monitoring their movements. "These guys aren't just bugging out, they're tactically withdrawing. Very professional, well trained, motivated and equipped. They operate like a state with a military," said one official who tracks ISIS closely. "These aren't the same guys we fought in OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) who would just scatter when you dropped a bomb near them." ABC News Deep Dive: Who Is ISIS? Why Control of a Terrifying Dam in Iraq Is Life or Death for Half Million People Mission to Rescue US Hostages ‘Flawless,’ Except for Rescue ISIS appeared to have a sophisticated and well thought-out plan for establishing its "Islamic Caliphate" from northern Syria across the western and northern deserts of Iraq, many experts and officials have said, and support from hostage-taking, robbery and sympathetic donations to fund it. They use drones to gather overhead intel on targets and effectively commandeer captured military vehicles – including American Humvees -- and munitions. "They tried to push out as far as they thought they could and were fully prepared to pull back a little bit when we beat them back with airstrikes around Erbil. And they were fine with that, and ready to hold all of the ground they have now," a second official told ABC News. ISIS didn't necessarily count on holding Mosul Dam, officials said, but scored a major propaganda victory on social media when they hoisted the black flag of the group over the facility that provides electricity and water to a large swath of Iraq, or could drown millions if breached. CLICK HERE to return to the ABC News Investigative Unit homepage. U.S. special operations forces under the Joint Special Operations Command and U.S. Special Operations Command keep close tabs on the military evolution of ISIS and both its combat and terrorism -- called "asymmetric" -- capabilities, officials told ABC News. A primary reason is in anticipation of possibly fighting them, which a full squadron of special mission unit operators did in the Independence Day raid on an ISIS camp in Raqqah, Syria. "They're incredible fighters. ISIS teams in many places use special operations TTPs," said the second official, who has considerable combat experience, using the military term for "tactics, techniques and procedures." In sobering press conference Friday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said ISIS has shown that it is “as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that we have seen.” “They’re beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded,” he said. “This is beyond anything that we’ve seen.” Prior ISIS’s recent public successes, the former chairman of the 9/11 Commission, which just released a tenth anniversary report on the threat of terrorism currently facing the homeland, said he was shocked at how little seems to be known inside the U.S. intelligence community about the Islamist army brutalizing Iraq as it has Syria. “I was appalled at the ignorance,” former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, who led the 9/11 Commission, told ABC News last week. Kean, a Republican, who with vice chairman Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, recently met with about 20 top intelligence officials in preparation of the commission’s latest threat report, said many officials seemed both blind-sided and alarmed by the group's rise, growth and competency. “One official told me ‘I am more scared than at any time since 9/11,’” Kean recounted in a recent interview. A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence defended the intelligence community’s tracking of ISIS, saying officials had “expressed concern” about the threat as far back as last year. “The will to fight is inherently difficult to assess. Analysts must make assessments based on perceptions of command and control, leadership abilities, quality of experience, and discipline under fire -- none of which can be understood with certainty until the first shots are fired,” ODNI spokesperson Brian Hale said. Where did ISIS learn such sophisticated military methods, shown clearly after the first shots were fired? "Probably the Chechens," the one of the U.S. officials said. A Chechen commander named Abu Omar al-Shishani -- who officials say may have been killed in fighting near Mosul -- is well known for commanding an international brigade within ISIS. Other Chechens have appeared within propaganda videos including one commander who was killed on video by an artillery burst near his SUV in Syria. Earlier this year, ABC News reported on the secret history of U.S. special operations forces' experiences battling highly capable Chechen fighters along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border since 2001. In addition, for decades Chechen separatists have waged asymmetric warfare against Russian forces for control of the Northern Caucasus. The Secret Battles Between US Forces and Chechen Terrorists In the battle against ISIS, many within American "SOF," a term that comprises operators from all branches of the military and intelligence, are frustrated at being relegated by the President only to enabling U.S. airstrikes in Iraq. They are eager to fight ISIS more directly in combat operations -- even if untethered, meaning unofficially and with little if any U.S. government support, according to some with close ties to the community. "ISIS and their kind must be destroyed," said a senior counterterrorism official after journalist James Foley was beheaded on high-definition ISIS video, echoing strong-worded statements of high-level U.S. officials including Secretary of State John Kerry. But asked when the Obama administration would attempt to confront ISIS, the official declined to answer. Ben Rhodes, the President’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, told reporters Friday that Obama is currently focused on protecting American lives, “containing” ISIS where they are and supporting advances by Iraqi and Kurdish forces. “Our military objectives in Iraq right now are limited to protecting our personnel and facilities and address the humanitarian crisis,” Rhodes said. The “ultimate goal,” Rhodes said however, was to “defeat” ISIS. “We have to be clear that this is a deeply-rooted organization… It is going to take time, a long time, to fully evict them from the communities where they operate,” he said. “In the long term, we’ll be working with our partners to defeat this organization.” Poster Comment: JohnD Saddam's military had several,special operations brigades, all,Sunni, all trained by Soviet Spetnatz , British SAS, and our SF guys over the years! In the 2003 invasion our troops,rolled over the Regular Iraqi army and got hit hard by the Fedaykeen irregulars who put up nasty fights! These guys are probably them or.at least,trained by them! When Brilliant Bremer fired the army and police, the Sunnis became the guerrillas, supporting the anti govt forces! They are still out there in Syria and elsewhere until they gather in their new Garden of Allah! 16-1 Guy Why is the media calling ISIS "The Islamic State"? Does that not give them a degree of legitimancy as an established goverment? It is in fact a terriorist movement with an organized army that has invaded two recognized countries and slaughtered many innocent people along the way. I am in the middle east now for work and although many Muslims do not like western policy, not all hate us. The reference to ISIS as an islamic state implies somehow Islam is the problem. It is not. Extremeinst are the problem. That is like saying all cops are brutal killers. Or like saying the #$%$ speaks for conservitive republicans. Some may indeed be extremist, but the majority are doing important work. Media coverage here is very comprehensive and details how complicated the issues are. Even within extremist groups there is deadly infighting and competing interests. We, the US, need to take a careful and develop ameasured approach in dealing with middle eastern affairs, including ISIS. The last time we jumped in with two feet, we unleashed the current situation. Pandoras box comes to mind. For now and forever, call ISIS for is, a terrorist group and not a state. Words are powereful. Choose them carefully.7-1 eness These comments are just plain stupid in that they fail to give any assessment of the role of former Iraqi Sunni military officers in the ISIS war strategy. The Sunnis were the majority of the Iraqi military and its elite prior to Hussein's fall. They fought a long intensive war with Iran from 1980 to 1988 making it the twentieth century's longest conventional war. Clearly those Sunni war veterans, inclusive of generals and more junior officers, learned the tactics and logistics of large scale warfare (it is estimated 500,000 Iraqi and Iranian soldiers lost their lives). As a result of Paul Bremer exacerbating sectarian differences by making Iraqis register as Sunni, Shia or otherwise, and also as a result of allowing the Shia to relegate the previously dominant Sunnis to a non-entity status with resentment so great that the Sunnis promised a maelstrom of carnage and death if they remained excluded from governance and the military, we now have the Sunnis doing what they promised albeit in partnership with ISIS. It is the Sunnis and their capable military leaders and fighters who have made ISIS so formidable in Iraq. That's not to say ISIS has no credible capabilities apart from the Sunnis, but their success in conquering so much of Iraq is a direct result of their arrangement with the Sunnis, especially their war hardened military leaders.10-1 o I said all along, Not to pull out of Iraq and or Afgan. When we did we left our hardware over their after training these thugs on how to use them! Our Govt. gave these thugs weapons and money to fight the Syrian regime, just like we did to bin laden during the russian afgan war then the table turn to us. We got to many idiots in office that don't have a clue and all went to college. They say that you need a college education to do their job. I think different a person without a college education can do a better job hen what we have in office now! America have these sleeper cells already here and paid them to come here and paid for them to open a business so that these individuals can send money our money back to their country and to pay for weapons, and recruit here in the US. We need strong people that says enough is enough and stop this bs that our leaders / elected officials are doing to our country. I say glass them over and then purge these people out at all cost.6-1 ours ago Better or worse before or after US attack? = Iraq = worse off Afghanistan = worse off Libya = worse off America please stop being involved with other people's problems. You are not helping.8 BC You mean more guns didn't bring peace to the region? Shhh - don't tell the NRA6-1 Les ... Ask the troops who were there and they will tell you there were WMD's that were moved to Afganistan. The media just wanted to hide this fact to make Pres. Bush look bad. [brian] Wow, revisionist history and the mindless morons that believe it. There were no wmd, never seen, found, never existed. Bush JR, by removing Saddam created this. I hope to God that stupid jerk chokes on his tongue tonight and passes. You are more right than right. Now to clean up Jr's mess. . Paul... Problem was Saddam was funding Palestinians who were blowing up Israeli thieves by the busload. So a destabilized Iraq means happiness in Israel.and it's Israel which determines US foreign policy since it's US agents who determine who runs and wins in Congressional elections. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
Yeah, rednecks with guns running around in pickup trucks. They're everywhere. I see them all the time. Maybe ISIS really is here.
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