ISIS

Disinformation, Theirs and Ours

Featured image The terrorist attack in Moscow that killed more than 130 apparently was the work of ISIS-K, one of several ISIS franchises. That is what our intelligence agencies say, and I have no reason to doubt it. The fact that ISIS was able to upload video footage apparently recorded by the terrorists would appear to confirm that ISIS was responsible. The London Times reports: A Russian disinformation campaign is attempting to »

Fatal Bureau Inventory

Featured image “We are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border,” FBI boss Christopher Wray told Congress last week. “There is a particular network that has – some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have — ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about, and we’ve been spending enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating.” As Robert Spencer, author of The History of Jihad: »

Somewhere over the horizon

Featured image The Biden administration has conducted a comprehensive campaign of misinformation, disinformation, lying, and deception of the storied Gaslight variety. My personal favorite is the “success” of Biden’s open borders program, but you may have your own. The frequently derided White House press secretary KJP may be the perfect person for the job after all. The humiliating fiasco of our withdrawal from Afghanistan is another case in point. “Twas a famous »

U.S. kills ISIS-K target in Afghanistan

Featured image U.S. forces carried out a drone strike on an ISIS-K target in eastern Afghanistan today. ISIS-K is the group that claimed responsibility for the bombing that killed more than 170 people, including 13 U.S. service members, at the Kabul airport. A U.S. military spokesman said: U.S. military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner. The unmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangahar Province of Afghanistan. Initial indications »

Norway’s PM loses majority for admitting ISIS fighter

Featured image The Washington Post reports that Norway’s prime minister has lost her parliamentary majority because one of the parties in her coalition withdrew in protest over the repatriation of a suspected ISIS member from a Syrian camp. The Prime Minister, Erna Solberg of the Conservative Party, says she will try to govern with a minority coalition. The party in question is the Progress Party which the Post describes as “right wing.” »

A Better Obituary, and a Useful Reminder

Featured image The London Times is a liberal and virulently anti-Trump newspaper. But its obituary of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi stands in sharp contrast to the ridiculous product of the Washington Post, which we and pretty much everyone else have ridiculed. The London Times obituary is a good reminder of how evil al-Baghdadi was. It begins: The catalogue of car bombs, shooting and suicide attacks wreaked over recent years in the name of »

You Can’t Mock the Post Enough [Updated]

Featured image As Scott noted a little while ago, the Washington Post has made a fool of itself with its obituary for al-Baghdadi. The Post’s headline for its obituary–its second attempt, apparently–was “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48.” That prompted mockery across the internet: Adolf Hitler, Austrian vegan activist and landscape painter, dies at 56https://t.co/szPOVa5Sae — David Burge (@iowahawkblog) October 27, 2019 “John Wayne »

Report: Killin’ caliph down

Featured image The AP reports at the top of its long story: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the shadowy leader of the Islamic State group who presided over its global jihad and became arguably the world’s most wanted man, is believed dead after being targeted by a U.S. military raid in Syria. A U.S. official told The Associated Press late Saturday that al-Baghdadi was targeted in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. The official said confirmation »

America’s withdrawal from Syria: Are congratulations in order?

Featured image Yesterday, President Trump spoke about the cease-fire in northeastern Syria. He declared it a major diplomatic victory for the administration. Trump noted that critics had “scorned” him for removing U.S. troops from areas controlled by the U.S. and our Kurdish allies. “Now,” claimed Trump, “people are saying ‘Wow, what a great outcome — congratulations.'” Most of Trump’s critics aren’t saying this, though. They complain that Trump has opened the door »

More bad argument by Trump in defense of the Syria pullback

Featured image There are respectable arguments in favor of the pullback of U.S. troops in northeastern Syria. I don’t find them persuasive, but they are serious. Unfortunately, President Trump persists in making ludicrous arguments. One of them, the fact that the Kurds didn’t help us with the Normandy invasion, I discussed here. I hoped that this argument was a throwaway — a one-off. No such luck. Now, Trump is claiming that the »

Report: Fight against ISIS flags due to Turkish invasion [UPDATED]

Featured image The Washington Post reports that the Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria has forced the U.S. military and its Kurdish allies to curtail significantly their shared military operations against ISIS. The Kurds, under attack by their deadly enemy, have turned their attention to defending themselves from the Turks. Reportedly, hundreds of Kurdish-led fighters with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have relocated to the front lines of the fight with Turkey, and »

The Normandy test

Featured image Defenders of President Trump’s decision to remove U.S. troops from a portion of Syria, thereby enabling Turkey to have at the Kurds, make a number of arguments in favor of that move. I don’t find any of them persuasive, but some are better than others. The worst argument I know of comes from Trump himself. He points out that the Kurds didn’t help us at Normandy. He’s right, they didn’t. »

Report: ISIS is gaining in Syria and Iraq

Featured image The New York Times reports that ISIS is gathering new strength and conducting guerrilla attacks across Iraq and Syria. Observers are confident that ISIS won’t reclaim anything like its former physical territory, a “caliphate” that was the size of Britain and controlled the lives of up to 12 million people. However, if it continues to gain strength, ISIS may soon become a force to be reckoned with and could control »

Sri Lanka Bombings: A Story of ISIS and Wealthy Terrorists

Featured image In the U.S., coverage of the Islamic terrorist bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday has been sparse and generally uninformative. It tells you something when Britain’s Sun, which has mostly abandoned the news in favor of soccer and celebrities in bikinis, is a better source than the New York Times or the Washington Post. That is certainly the case with regard to the Sri Lanka »

Erdogan snubs Bolton, then denounces him on TV

Featured image On Monday, John Bolton declared that the Trump administration’s plan to pull U.S. forces out of Syria is conditioned on protecting the Kurdish warriors who bore the brunt of our fight to defeat ISIS. This condition seemed to preclude a complete withdrawal in the foreseeable future. As I explained: I don’t see how a complete U.S. withdrawal can be accomplished without putting the Kurds in serious jeopardy at the hands »

How serious is Trump about withdrawing from Syria?

Featured image The U.S. withdrawal from Syrian might not be as precipitous as it was originally described by President Trump. It also may not be as complete. Yesterday, during a visit to Israel where he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, John Bolton outlined objectives that must be met before the U.S. withdraws from Syria. “The timetable flows from the policy decisions that we need to implement,” he explained. One objective, of course, »

The Cost of Betraying Syria’s Kurds

Featured image Tommy Meyerson, a former Marine who served in Syria, has written an op-ed for Wall Street Journal called “The Cost of Betraying Syria’s Kurds.” He argues that withdrawing from Syria will likely produce catastrophic humanitarian consequences and cause harm to U.S. interests. Meyerson begins by noting the immense contribution the Kurds have made in the war against ISIS: The U.S. and the West have quietly relied on the Syrian Kurds »