What is the next move?New images released by the Islamic State reveal that the terrorist group is in possession of surface-to-air missiles capable of shooting down helicopters and civilian aircraft.Military experts at Jane’s Defence identified the weapons as Chinese-made FN-6 Man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADs, which can reach up to 12,500 feet vertically.Although the range of the FN-6 puts most military and commercial aircraft out of reach, they are capable of shooting down any aircraft during takeoff and landing, posing a significant threat to flights in and out of Baghdad airport.More troubling, however, is the fact that terrorists are now sharing information on “the best way to shoot down an Apache helicopter” on the Internet.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
They have the tools they need to counter our airstrike strategy
ISIS loves to show off hardware it acquires. They've come across quite a treasure trove recently, it seems:
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At the very least, Iraq War III. That should keep you in your armchair strategizing for a while.
ReplyDeleteISIS loves to bait America. And we're Taking it. Yes, they know the region and it's history and likely more about its future than we do.
ReplyDeletePost-America's future, too.
ReplyDeletePretty easy to understand our country. It's a relative youngin and nobody from other countries is trying to remake it.
ReplyDeleteThomas Friedman's take in Tuesday's NYT, not that you give a crap what he thinks:
Deletesuspect the jihadists in charge want to draw the U.S. into another “crusade” against Muslims — just like Osama bin Laden — to energize and attract Muslims from across the world and to overcome their main weakness, namely that most Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis are attracted to ISIS simply as a vehicle of their sectarian resurgence, not because they want puritanical/jihadist Islam. There is no better way to get secular Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis to fuse with ISIS than have America bomb them all. ISIS needs to be contained before it destabilizes islands of decency like Jordan, Kurdistan and Lebanon. But destroying it? That will be hard, because it’s not just riding on some jihadist caliphate fantasy, but also on deep Sunni nationalist grievances. Separating the two is the best way to defeat ISIS, but the only way to separate mainstream Sunnis from jihadists is for mainstream Sunnis and Shiites to share power, to build a healthy interdependency from what is now an unhealthy one. Chances of that? Very low. I hope President Obama has thought this through.
Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/opinion/thomas-friedman-isis-and-vietnam.html?action=click&contentCollection=Fashion%20%26%20Style&module=MostEmailed&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article