Good day my friends and welcome to today’s briefing…..

The news coming out of the Middle East and the battle against ISIS is slowing down for the media….Kobane is about all we will get from the MSM…….we try to take the reader into the real world of the fight against ISIS.

Unfortunately this means that the briefings will be given less frequently…..I apologize and will return to the daily briefings as the battle heats up…….

Item 1–Iraq forces are attempting to recapture the country largest refinery……

Iraqi security forces said they advanced to within 2 km (1.2 miles) of the city of Baiji on Wednesday in a new offensive to retake the country’s biggest oil refinery, besieged since June by Islamic State militants.

Backed by Shi’ite militias and army helicopters, government forces have swept through a desert area to the west of Baiji, aiming to recapture the city 200 km (130 miles) north of the capital.

This should illustrate if the plan they have now is doable……

Item 2–If you will recall we had a new bad guy….Khorsan….remember and we took them on and how did we do?

US officials say that the September attack on “Khorasan,” a US-invented term for a faction within Jabhat al-Nusra, failed even worse than previously reported, and the leaders previously reported killed actually survived.

Though officials claimed to be tracking Khorasan for a long time, experts believe the term was primarily invented to sell the attacks as something other than on Nusra, which in addition to being al-Qaeda is also a close ally of the “moderate” rebels the US always hypes in Syria.

OOPS!  Things are changing and we just seem to be following not leading……

Item 3–The Iraqi Kurds that went to Kobame to assist the defenders may be a constitutional sticking point……

Dispatching Peshmerga to the besieged Syrian town of Kobane is a political move and violates the Iraqi constitution, an Iraqi parliamentarian close to former Prime Minister Nouri-al Maliki claimed in an interview with Rudaw.

“The question is: will this force do anything for Kobane?” Ali al-Adeeb said by telephone from Baghdad Wednesday. “At the moment the force is very small. That’s why I think the deployment is nothing more than a political message,” he said.

A political battle could be the nail that ends Iraqi’s involvement…..bit really but some will want to believe that it will make a difference.

Item 4–I have said all along that the key to fighting ISIS in Anbar will be the tribes and so far the effort has been a dud……

When Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi took office, he was regarded as a moderate Shi’ite leader who could win over powerful Sunni tribal chiefs to the fight against Islamic State.

Three months later, Sunnis who once helped U.S. Marines kick the Islamic State’s predecessor al Qaeda out of Iraq view Abadi with deep scepticism because he has yet to deliver on promises to support their neglected Sunni heartland Anbar province.

The Sunni tribes are an answer for Iraq’s survival…….without them the battle against ISIS will not succeed.

Another day of little real information on the battle against ISIS…..the news will be dominated by the battle for Kobane (a battle that I do not think it is as important as the media wants it to be)……

This concludes today’s briefing……

Thanx for your time and attention

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