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Pentagon map hides Islamic State gains

Apr 22, 2015 10:47 pm By Robert Spencer

Pentagon ISIS mapI thought it was fishy when the Pentagon claimed that it had lost 25% of its territory, and noted at the time that we had been hearing about the Islamic State losing for months. Then days after the announcement about the Islamic State losing territory, we heard that it was besieging Ramadi, a key city near Baghdad. And now this. Has Baghdad Bob become the Secretary of Defense?

“Exclusive: Pentagon Map Hides ISIS Gains,” by Tim Mak, The Daily Beast, April 22, 2015:

The U.S. military presented evidence that it was beating back the so-called Islamic State but it doesn’t even count coalition setbacks.

The Defense Department released a map last week showing territory where it is has pushed ISIS back, claiming that the terrorist group is “no longer able to operate freely in roughly 25 to 30 percent of populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once could.” This was touted as evidence of success by numerous news outlets.

Pushing ISIS back is clearly a good step. But the information from the Pentagon is, at best, misleading and incomplete, experts in the region and people on the ground tell The Daily Beast. They said the map misinforms the public about how effective the U.S.-led effort to beat back ISIS has actually been. The map released by the Pentagon excludes inconvenient facts in some parts, and obscures them in others.

The Pentagon’s map assessing the so-called Islamic State’s strength has only two categories: territory held by ISIS currently, and territory lost by ISIS since coalition airstrikes began in August 2014. The category that would illustrate American setbacks—where ISIS has actually gained territory since the coalition effort began—is not included….

The map also shows areas where ISIS is “dominant,” as opposed to the terrorist group’s operational reach—the areas where it can inflict violence….

“ISIL’s own doctrine says it must gain and hold territory. This map shows they are not achieving their stated goals,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren told The Daily Beast, using the government’s preferred acronym for the terror group.

But Warren seemed to acknowledge that the map isn’t entirely accurate.

The document “was not meant to be a detailed tactical map—it is simply a graphic used to explain the overall situation,” he said.

The entire battlefield of the ISIS war isn’t depicted, however. For some reason, the Pentagon’s ISIS map excludes the entire western side of Syria—which, coincidentally or not, is an area where ISIS has gained a significant foothold since the U.S.-led bombing effort began last year.

Western Syria is also an area dominated by the Syrian regime, led by President Bashar al-Assad. The United States has insisted that Assad must leave office, but has not elucidated a clear strategy for how to compel this to occur.

Jennifer Cafarella, a fellow specializing in Syria at the Institute for the Study of War, said that while the map, as presented, looked accurate, she would “highlight that the map doesn’t extend to include western Syria, where there is growing ISIS presence… the map cuts off, essentially ignoring ISIS in the Syrian-Lebanese border region and Damascus.”

ISIS gains in the area excluded from the Pentagon’s map should be noted, Cafarella continued, because “they are a forward investment for ISIS that will create long-term opportunities for further expansion into zones in which coalition airstrikes are unlikely, at least in the near term, to penetrate..”

Since airstrikes began in August, ISIS has also shown its force on the northeastern suburbs of Damascus, near Qabun. More recently, ISIS made international news through a violent takeover of the area surrounding a Palestinian refugee camp called Yarmouk, which U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has described as “the deepest circle of hell.”…

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Filed Under: Featured, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), United States, Useful idiots Tagged With: Pentagon


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Comments

  1. Jay Airahs says

    Apr 22, 2015 at 11:12 pm

    If Justin the Muslim wished to mock the West and America this might be a good choice but Justin instead much prefers to cause a distraction on articles about where Muslims are doing horrendous things like sex slaves and murdering non-Muslim children in the name of Islam’s Serpent of Satan, Muhammad (two ‘M’s) and his worthless sock-puppet Allah.

  2. Don McKellar says

    Apr 22, 2015 at 11:42 pm

    I don’t know if Baghdad Bob has become the Secretary of Defence, but I do know that Baghdad Barry is serving as the President of the United States! So maybe that explains it.

    • Don McKellar says

      Apr 22, 2015 at 11:43 pm

      Defense.

  3. JamesonRocks says

    Apr 23, 2015 at 12:11 am

    Takes me back to the days of exaggerated body-count numbers in Vietnam…

  4. Laura says

    Apr 23, 2015 at 4:09 am

    Robert, what I really want to see is a map of where Muslims are concentrating in the United States… or at least a list of places. I live near a large Muslim community in San Diego and want to move out of this area. Would hate to move and find myself in another growing Muslim community.

    • pfbonney says

      Apr 23, 2015 at 9:51 am

      When I was in Iraq with the Guard, back in 2009/2010, all of our interpreters were contract native Arabic speakers who were now US citizens. (There were “professional” interpreters/linguists over there, who held Top Secret clearances and commanding $200,000 salaries, but that level of skill wasn’t needed for what we were doing.)

      From what I learned there, “Dearborn-istan”, in Michigan, is the biggie here in the US, but the new, emerging Muslim/Arab enclave is in Phoenix, as the desert climate is more like home to them. Not particularly comforting in view of reports in the media of jihadis crossing into the US down there, and the ability for sympathetic locals to provide them with support, but I suppose it doesn’t make any real difference overall, with the money they have available to them.

      I’m sure there are more, hearing about recent events in Boston and Wisconsin (where, I believe, that US Congress Rep is from, who was recently placed on the Intelligence committee), but I can tell you only what I know.

  5. duh_swami says

    Apr 23, 2015 at 9:25 am

    Lies trickle down. They start at the top and infect everyone below…like a leaky toilet on the 2nd floor. The US gov has become… ‘Lies R Us’…It might take a wrench and a hammer to get rid of it…

  6. Bill Ford says

    Apr 23, 2015 at 9:30 am

    Looks to me these maps remind me of the old South Vietnam press conferences announcing gains in pacified regions in South Vietnam circa 1967.

  7. mortimer says

    Apr 23, 2015 at 9:55 am

    Soon ISIS personnel will drop like flies from water-borne illnesses. Without electricity or water treatment, they will soon have a host of illnesses as the warmer weather causes them to grow and mutate. Almost everyone will get sick.

  8. pfbonney says

    Apr 23, 2015 at 10:04 am

    You can’t blame the military for this. When you have a boss who finds countering ANY Muslims, Jihadi’s or otherwise, and only intervened here to save his presidency, in the first place (according to columnists, at the time), AND who has a record of sacking any military people who make him look bad, regardless of the merits, then you have to do his bidding, and misrepresent the facts, if you want to keep your career on track.

    • Darren01 says

      Apr 23, 2015 at 5:29 pm

      You’re right, and it’s a shame. I wonder how much damage the purge has done to the military long term. You get rid of a lot of very experienced people and I am sure those officers purged were most likely good soldiers who weren’t into the political correct nonsense, which is a good thing, since there is no place for rainbows and unicorns in the military, and no there is no double meaning to the rainbow thing. I’ve been wondering about this, but obtaining such information at least for me is most likely impossible. It seems you are either in the military or were in the military, do you think my concerns are valid?

  9. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    Apr 23, 2015 at 1:29 pm

    Lying has become to be the norm in politics nowadays; it’s to be expected. Hearing the unvarnished truth is rare.

    But I’ll give the American military credit. They swore an oath to protect the Constitution, as did their Commander in Chief, who has openly violated it since taking office. Yet the military has held off from seizing power in its name. The reason for this reticence is probably the same quandary that confronts all loyal Americans: who would you give the power, what politician, bureaucrat or court justice is loyal now?

    • Darren01 says

      Apr 23, 2015 at 5:33 pm

      You are correct, that is the central issue. Would the new boss be the same or worse than the old boss. We also have another problem, the electorate itself. Compare the average citizen of American when the revolutionary war happened to today’s citizen. I feel a large portion of the populace is as much to blame as our government.

  10. HarveyMushman says

    Apr 23, 2015 at 1:33 pm

    Very interesting that obama and his spokesmen have for some time now been using the term ISIL instead of ISIS….ISIL is the Islamic State In the Levant. The Levant includes Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria. Have they already conceded these countries to ISIS??

  11. Geppetto says

    Apr 23, 2015 at 3:40 pm

    Obama has apparently succeeded in replacing all top military brass with those with his political views and willing to do whatever it takes to protect Obama’s legacy. Those more willing to acknowledge the fact that he is the commander in chief and more willing to accept a subservient role rather than offer military advice different from Obama’s intentions.

  12. Louis says

    Apr 25, 2015 at 3:00 pm

    Iranian Shiite Valerie Jarret living in the White House, Obamas Father was Shiite Muslim, , Hillary’s lesbian connections with Shiite Muslim Organizer Huma Abedin. The Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the Oval office
    Secret Russian Federation “Uranium Deals”Oak Ridge Yellow cake Uranium transported in Russian trucks to Canada Border, Once in Canada Russia does what it wants. Russian plants in Canada spin the ore to 20% however no one is watching and weapons grade Uranuim by the Metric Ton may well have been sold By Putin to the Iranian regime cells IN THE USA where it is easily planted in all major cities, waiting for the push of a button.. . This solves the need for ICBM technology, just many suicidal terrorists to set it all off at a given time.
    .
    Bill and Hillary have personally gained 145 Million down, and 100 Million per year since 2005 PLUS 50% of the profits. From the Kremlin. This sale sees export of 50% of all the US output of Uranium to the Canadian border, IT DOES NOT monitor what Russia does to it once it is outside the USA.

    Harry Truman, their worse than Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

    • Louis says

      Apr 25, 2015 at 3:05 pm

      And Truman was a Democrat !

      It’s actually almost like Julius and Ethel STOLE the actual Trinity bomb, instead of just the plans.

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