Posted on 08/20/2014 5:51:42 AM PDT by Kaslin
Earlier this month, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that inaction toward the radical Islamic State “is no longer an option.” She also appropriately called them what they are: an army.
“It takes an army to defeat and army, and I believe that we either confront ISIL now or we will be forced to deal with an even stronger enemy in the future,” she said in a statement. The Islamic State is “operating with military expertise, advancing across Iraq, and rapidly consolidating its position.”
According to a monitoring group's estimates, we now have numbers to confirm Feinstein's assessment. Including fighters in both Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State is 80,000 strong and growing by the day.
The Islamic State group has an army of more than 50,000 fighters in Syria, and recruited 6,000 people in the last month, a monitoring group has said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Tuesday that the group's recruitment push was gathering pace every month.
"July saw the largest recruitment since the group appeared in Syria in 2013, with more than 6,000 new fighters," he said.
"The number of IS fighters has passed 50,000 in Syria, including 20,000 non-Syrians," he said.
Al Jazeera cannot verify the observatory's figures. However, an Islamic State source backed the statement and told Al Jazeera that the group also had 30,000 fighters in Iraq.
Abdel Rahman said the new recruits in Syria included more than 1,000 foreign fighters from Chechnya, China, Europe and Arab countries. He said most had entered Syria from Turkey.
IS is not a problem that will remain in the Middle East if left unchecked. They have taunted President Obama and America at large on numerous occasions, and most recently released a video with the theme of “breaking the American cross.” In the video, they boast about “emerging victorious over “crusader” America,” Reuters reports.
JihadWatch.org explains further:
The Islamic State jihadis think of the U.S. as a Christian nation, and so they think of destroying it as breaking the cross, which language is also reminiscent of this:
Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Apostle said, “By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, son of Mary (Jesus) will shortly descend amongst you people (Muslims) as a just ruler and will break the Cross and kill the pig and abolish the Jizya (a tax taken from the non-Muslims, who are in the protection, of the Muslim government). Then there will be abundance of money and no-body will accept charitable gifts. (Bukhari 3.34.425)
Meanwhile, IS continues to warn that if U.S. airstrikes continue, Americans will be attacked “in any place.” The gruesome video of an IS militant purportedly beheading journalist James Foley in retaliation for airstrikes is one such example, and the executioner threatened to do the same to fellow American journalist Steven Joel Sotloff, depending on President Obama’s next move.
It was only an “option” when it was politically convenient to you when Bush was president!
funny how everytime Di Fi gets an intelligence briefing she comes out sounding like a Republican
a slightly leaky one
How stupid!
An army without a country? Really?
In the real world, that translates to criminals, soldiers of fortune, stateless murderers, groups with NO proper chain of command, groups conducting mindless, opportunistic and irresponsible violence, groups that can ONLY exist, arm themselves, eat, deploy or otherwise sustain themselves by theft or other illegal means, etc.!!
“Feinstein” and “head of the Senate Intelligence Committee” just don’t go together well or should NOT be together at all. The Republicans need to take back the Senate.
ISIS is simply is doing what its god, who was from the begining “a liar, a thief, and murderer”, allah = the devil.
M-14 pictured. Man pad SAMs not pictured.
Possibly the only option left for ‘di fi’ to hold any further semblance of credibility is to call for obama’s and holder’s impeachment and removal. She is on the ‘senate intelligence committee’ and has security clearance to information not given out to the public, as all know. What she is not saying and what she is not doing in the face of this threat tells anyone looking at her comments ‘di fi’ is not serious and she continues to support obama, holder, and isis. Her credibility took last train out of D.C. for a vacation and ‘di fi’ left on an airplane. ‘di fi’ is aloft. Her credibility is committing suicide for her three heroes.
Okay. Fine. They are not a terrorist “group”
They are a terrorist army.
How does that change what we need to do about them?
DiFi needs to inform Obama that drones are not an army.
As sophisticated as an Army? Obama said they were the JV team.
Have no doubt ... ‘di fi’ is not offering shelter from the storm, ‘di fi’ is instead bringing on the storm. No wonder her credibility committed suicide.
>She also appropriately called them what they are: an army.<
.
BS. Does that mean that their actions so far are justified under the Geneva convention?
Call’m what they are: muzzie terrorists.
Later, Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani also said "We are not facing a terrorist organization, but a well-armed terrorist state that is against every human principle,” Barzani warned." http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/100820141
The differentiation between a terrorist group/organization and an army may be nebulous. But a few points can be made. A terrorist group usually fights in pockets, against a specific regime or government, and usually consists mostly of a certain ethnic group or nationality.
IS is fighting indiscriminately to convert anyone who does not subscribe to their specific beliefs and ideology. Moreover, when it started in Syria and subsequently moved to Iraq, it moved like a well planned and organized army, with a military strategy, wanting to take terrain/land.
In terms of being a state, although no country currently recognizes IS as a "nation state", IS does and that's their initial aim is an Islamic State stretching across Iraq and the Levant (greater Syria), and has a Caliph. Of course it uses brutal tactics (terror included) in carrying out its objectives.
As you know, Geneva Convention has a set of protocols during war, which include humanitarian ones to which IS does not adhere. So, IS's actions are not justified under Geneva Convention. Also, IS doesn't care about Geneva Convention and will not should it be successful in establishing itself as a formal "Nation State" that is recognized by at least one other country.
Anyway, that's my take on this.
She meant ISIS is an Army and not just a group
of course they are mooslim terrorists
It is an army that uses terror to grow it’s ranks.
It’s the army of Satan.
Muhammad is Satan.
Allah is the moon that replaced the real G-d in Islam.
It is a Terrorist Army.
People are so confused because this is it.
correct
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