Good day and welcome to the briefing……..the debate has begun…..an authorization to use force…..the problem is we are already using force…..what is the purpose of this? Authorizing at l;east 3 more years of bloodshed?
Item 1–It appears there is some confusion of just when the “big” push against ISIS in Iraq……
.After several months of sort of spinning its wheels in the war against ISIS, retired Gen. John Allen, who’s become sort of the global ambassador to the war, says the Iraqi “ground offensive” will begin in a matter of weeks.
Gen. Allen, whose comments were made to Jordan’s state media, said the coalition intends to provide “major firepower” for the offensive, and that the goal is to “take back Iraq.”
The confusion is that an Iraqi big wig says that the army is not ready to take on ISIS….the question now is we will or we will not take on ISIS sooner than anticipated.
Item 2–Thousands of Jordanian troops have been mobilized to the border with Iraq…..some say it is to stem the flow of infiltrators…..but this analyst smells something more in this news.
Item 3–With the death of a young woman held by ISIS the admin has issued a report……
………..officials believed that the “Islamic State” (IS) held one US citizen. News agencies speculated it could be journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared in Damascus in 2012.
“We have avoided discussing the individual cases of Americans who have been held hostage, but we are aware of other American hostages being held in the region,” Earnest said on Tuesday in response to a question about whether IS or similar groups held any other US citizens hostage.
Item 4–The intel news coming out of the battle against ISIS is still not good……
Reports coming out of Syria that the Jordanian airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria may well have killed American hostage Kayla Mueller have brought new attention to a long-standing problem with the US-led war on ISIS, the paucity of intelligence relating to the actual goings on on the ground in ISIS territory.
Officials testifying to Congress once again admitted they have considerable intelligence gaps, because they don’t have a footprint of spies on the ground to provide intelligence on the war.
Not good news if a defeat is imminent…..
Item 5–Possibly the best news coming out of the Coalition…….
Kurdish Peshmerga forces have surrounded Mosul from three sides ahead of a planned operation to liberate the city from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) control, a senior Peshmerga official said.
In comments to Asharq Al-Awsat, Peshmerga Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Jamal Mohamed said: “Over the past few months, Peshmerga forces have been able to make significant advances east, west and north of Mosul and our operations there have completely cut off ISIS from these areas.”
“Our forces are now very close to Mosul. In some cases we are no further than 10–15 kilometers [6.2–9.3 miles] from the city and are in control of all the main bridges in the [surrounding] Eski and Al-Kasak area, which is the main link between Mosul and Tal Afar,” he added.
This concludes this weeks briefing….hopefully it has been informative…..
Thanx for your time and attention…..
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