Report: Merger of ISIS and Al-Qaeda Could Cripple Civilized World
Photo Credit: Reuters By Breitbart News.
As ISIS continues to advance on the Syrian town of Kobani and close in on Turkey’s border, experts in Islamic radical movements think the terror group may merge with its al-Qaeda mother organization soon. Together, the group would represent the greatest terror threat to the civilized world.
“I think Britain, Germany and France will witness significant attacks in their territories by the Islamic State. Al-Baghdadi [the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, otherwise known as ISIS] may reconcile with al-Zawhiri [the leader of the al-Qaeda central organization] to fight the crusader enemy. The attacks by the United States and her allies will unite the two groups,” said Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi researcher who just finished writing a book about ISIS based on his unique access to the organization’s documents and years of research and advising Iraqi security forces.
“I have been monitoring al-Qaeda’s leaders’ rhetoric towards Baghdadi. They are getting softer and softer….The Islamic State, regardless of how big or small it becomes, will come back to its mother: al-Qaeda,” he added.
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Photo Credit: REUTERSTop US Gen. Dempsey: ISIS had ‘straight shot’ to Baghdad airport
By Fox News.
The U.S.’ top military leader said Sunday that Islamic State militants recently came within 15 miles of the Baghdad airport after overrunning Iraqi forces, adding to concerns about whether U.S. airstrikes alone can stop the jihadist army’s foray into Iraq.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, told ABC’s “This Week” that Apache helicopters were for the first time called in to stop the extremists’ “straight shot to the airport.”
“We were not going to allow that to happen,” said Dempsey, acknowledging the risk of using low-flying helicopters instead of fighter jets. “We need that airport.”
However, Dempsey said, there may come a time when he might recommend that American advisers accompany Iraqi troops against Islamic State targets.
Dempsey does not think Baghdad is in imminent jeopardy of being overrun by the Islamic State army but said individual members have infiltrated the surrounding Sunni population, which gives them the capability to fire indirectly into the city.
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War against Isis: US air strategy in tatters as militants march on
By PATRICK COCKBURN.
America’s plans to fight Islamic State are in ruins as the militant group’s fighters come close to capturing Kobani and have inflicted a heavy defeat on the Iraqi army west of Baghdad.
The US-led air attacks launched against Islamic State (also known as Isis) on 8 August in Iraq and 23 September in Syria have not worked. President Obama’s plan to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State has not even begun to achieve success. In both Syria and Iraq, Isis is expanding its control rather than contracting.
Isis reinforcements have been rushing towards Kobani in the past few days to ensure that they win a decisive victory over the Syrian Kurdish town’s remaining defenders. The group is willing to take heavy casualties in street fighting and from air attacks in order to add to the string of victories it has won in the four months since its forces captured Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, on 10 June. Part of the strength of the fundamentalist movement is a sense that there is something inevitable and divinely inspired about its victories, whether it is against superior numbers in Mosul or US airpower at Kobani.
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