Good day and welcome to the briefing…….

Item 1–The Coalition in the battle against ISIS is trying all venues to try and stop the successes of the group…..and now it ventures into cyberspace…..

The United States on Monday unveiled what it called an information coalition with Muslim and Western nations to combat efforts by Islamic State to recruit online and stoke sectarian hatred through a “cult of violence”.

“There is a military coalition that is on the battlefield with Daesh (Islamic State) every day and from the very beginning the partners in the coalition … felt that there should be an information coalition that complements the military coalition,” U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Affairs Richard Stengel told a news conference after the talks.

Worried by the growing threat from Islamist militants after the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) captured large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in June, Washington has been working with regional and world powers to fight the militants militarily, financially and politically.

With the biggest successes that ISIS has had is in the use of social media so logically this is a good place to concentrate your efforts…..

Item 2–US has had its first casualty in the war against ISIS……..

Washington may not have “boots on the ground” in Iraq, but it still recorded the first death of a serviceman in the fight against ISIS—19-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Sean Neal, the Washington Post reports. The California native reportedly died in Baghdad in what the Pentagon is calling a noncombat incident. The military divulged no further details but says it is investigating Neal’s death, the Marine Corps Times reports. Neal was on his first deployment as part of a new crisis-response group under US Central command; most of the group’s 2,300-strong force are stationed in Kuwait, but Neal was one of the 150 assigned to guard US facilities in Iraq, the LA Times reports.

A sad moment…….and another thing to consider is that he will NOT be the last…….

Item 3–As the old saying goes, “war makes strange bedfellows”……….

Syria’s state media agency SANA has issued a report today claiming they are providing both “direct and indirect” military aid to Kurdish factions within Kobani to help them fend off ISIS.

The report did not specify which factions were receiving the aid, and the PYD, the largest faction, rejected the claim as “propaganda,” knowing that the confirmation of a link to the Assad government would portray them in a more negative light with US and other coalition members.

In essence the US and Syria are on the same side in this conflict…….

Item 4–For a month now we have been told that the Syrian rebels would take the fight to ISIS as a western surrogate….but now this report comes out…..

(Reuters) – The United States does not expect Syrian rebels it plans to train to fight Islamic State militants to also take on President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, but sees them as a crucial part of a political solution to end the war, the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper quoted a senior U.S. official as saying.

Asked whether those rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) units would ultimately go on to fight Syrian government forces, John Allen, the U.S. representative to the coalition, told the Asharq al-Awsat daily:

“No. What we would like to see is for the FSA and the forces that we will ultimately generate, train and equip to become the credible force that the Assad government ultimately has to acknowledge and recognize.”

The most logical question to ask now…..Is there ANY plan for a ground force to take on ISIS?

Item 5–The war is a costly endeavor at best….so what is it costing?

The Pentagon has revised its estimate of the cost of the US air war in Iraq and Syria, saying the price tag for the campaign against the Islamic State group comes to about $8.3 million a day.

Since air strikes began on August 8, the campaign — which has involved about 6,600 sorties by US and allied aircraft — has cost $580 million, said Pentagon spokesman Commander Bill Urban.

Now the question is…from where will the funds come……which domestic programs will suffer to pay for this latest intervention?

That concludes today’s briefing…..I do hope that you found it informative……

Thanx for your time and attention.

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