Intel Official: ISIS ‘Sees Conflict With The US As Inevitable’
Photo Credit: Interdependent
An intelligence official warned Thursday that the terrorist group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria “sees conflict with the U.S. as inevitable,” The Washington Post’s David Ignatius reported in his latest column.
The columnist, known for his extensive sourcing in the intelligence community, summarized an intelligence briefing he attended:
In a briefing for journalists Thursday, a panel of five U.S. intelligence officials summed up their assessment of an organization that has shown a remarkable durability because it is “patient,” “well-organized,” “opportunistic” and “flexible.” Under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group has rebounded from about 1,500 fighters in 2010 to more than 10,000 today — becoming a global jihadist organization that communicates in many languages.
“We don’t assess this as something that will collapse on its own,” said one of the officials, who commented based on an agreement that their remarks would not be attributed. “But with pressure and alternatives [that might draw away its Sunni supporters], it could collapse over time.” The intelligence experts cautioned that counterterrorist tools, such as drone strikes and other air attacks, wouldn’t be sufficient “to defeat it rather than just ratchet it back.”
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US conducts new airstrikes as ISIS kills dozens of Yazidis in Iraq town, officials say
By Fox News.
The U.S. military conducted new airstrikes against Islamic militants Friday as sources tell Fox News members of the group killed at least 90 male members of Iraq’s Yazidi minority in a northern village and kidnapped “dozens” of women and children.
A senior U.S. defense official told Fox News that U.S. surveillance drones saw evidence of the massacre of dozens of Yazidi men. The U.S. military later struck two militant targets, killing some of those involved in the killings, the source said.
The U.S. military said in a statement Friday that the U.S. forces conducted the airstrikes on Islamic State vehicles in the village of Kawju. The village is located south of the village of Sinjar.
The Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking ethnic and religious group which numbers in the hundreds of thousands in Iraq, has been persecuted in the north by Islamic State militants, with at least 500 killed prior to Friday’s news, according to Iraq’s human rights minister.
Sources told Fox News it appears residents in the village did not comply with the militants’ demands to convert to Islam.
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