“If we know the location of these camps, and the president wants to destroy ISIS, why are the camps still functioning?” Excellent question. And no answer was forthcoming. Why not? Is it because there could be no possible explanation for this that makes sense in terms of American national security and that of the free world?
“Pentagon Not Targeting Islamic State Training Camps,” by Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon, August 28, 2015:
The Pentagon has not conducted airstrikes against an estimated 60 Islamic State (IS) training camps that are supplying thousands of fighters each month to the terror group, according to defense and intelligence officials.
The camps are spread throughout Islamic State-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria and are off limits in the U.S.-led international bombing campaign because of concerns about collateral damage, said officials familiar with planning and execution of the yearlong bombing campaign.
Additionally, the IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) camps have been so successful that Islamic State leaders are considering expanding the camps to Libya and Yemen. Both states have become largely ungoverned areas in recent years.
The failure to target the training camps with U.S. and allied airstrikes is raising questions among some defense and intelligence officials about the commitment of President Obama and his senior aides to the current anti-IS strategy of degrading and ultimately destroying the terror group.
“If we know the location of these camps, and the president wants to destroy ISIS, why are the camps still functioning?” one official critical of the policy asked.
The camps are regarded by U.S. intelligence analysts as a key element in the terror group’s successes in holding and taking new territory. The main benefit of the training camps is that they are providing a continuous supply of new fighters.
An additional worry of intelligence analysts is that some of the foreign fighters being trained in the camps will eventually return to their home countries in Europe and North America to carry out terror attacks.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the failure to bomb the terror camps and referred questions to the Pentagon.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Roger M. Cabiness declined to say why no training camps have been bombed. “I am not going to be able to go into detail about our targeting process,” he said.
Cabiness said the U.S.-led coalition has “hit ISIL [an alternative abbreviation for the Islamic State] with more than 6,000 airstrikes.”
“The coalition has also taken out thousands of fighting positions, tanks, vehicles, bomb factories, and training camps,” he said. “We have also stuck their leadership, including most recently on Aug. 18 when a U.S. military airstrike removed Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, also known as Hajji Mutazz, the second in command of the terrorist group, from the battlefield.”
Efforts also are being taken to disrupt IS finances and “make it more difficult for the group to attract new foreign fighters,” Cabiness said in an email.
A Central Command spokesman also declined to provide details of what he said were “operational engagements” against IS training camps.
“Once a target is identified as performing a hostile act, or is part of an obvious hostile force, a training camp for example, we prosecute that target in accordance with the coalition rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict,” the spokesman said.
According to the defense and intelligence officials, one reason the training camps have been off limits is that political leaders in the White House and Pentagon fear hitting them will cause collateral damage. Some of the camps are located near civilian facilities and there are concerns that casualties will inspire more jihadists to join the group.
However, military officials have argued that unless the training camps are knocked out, IS will continue to gain ground and recruit and train more fighters for its operations.
Disclosure that the IS training camps are effectively off limits to the bombing campaign comes as intelligence officials in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of the conflict, have alleged that senior U.S. officials skewed intelligence reports indicating the U.S. strategy against IS is not working or has been less effective than officials have claimed in public.
The Islamic State controls large parts of Syria and Iraq and has attracted tens of thousands of jihadists in both countries and from abroad. The exact number of fighters is not known but intelligence estimates have indicated the numbers have increased over the past year.
The military campaign, known as Operation Inherent Resolve, appears to be floundering despite a yearlong campaign of airstrikes and military training programs aimed to bolstering Iraqi military forces.
A review of Central Command reports on airstrikes since last year reveals that no attacks were carried out against training camps.
Targets instead included Islamic State vehicles, buildings, tactical units, arms caches, fighting positions, snipers, excavators, mortar and machine gun positions, bunkers, and bomb factories.
The risk-averse nature of the airstrike campaign was highlighted last month by Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley, chief of staff for what the military calls Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.
“The coalition continues to use air power responsibly,” Weidley said July 1. “Highly precise deliveries, detailed weaponeering, in-depth target development, collateral damage mitigation, and maximized effects on Daesh, are characteristics of coalition airstrike operation in Iraq and Syria.”
Daesh is another name for the Islamic State.
“The coalition targeting process minimizes collateral damage and maximizes precise effects on Daesh,” Weidley said earlier. “Air crews are making smart decisions and applying tactical patience every day.”
Other coalition spokesman have indicated that targeting has been limited to reaction strikes against operational groups of IS fighters. “When Daesh terrorists expose themselves and their equipment, we will strike them,” Col. Wayne Marotto said May 27.
The military website Long War Journal published a map showing 52 IS training camps and noted that some may no longer be operating because of the U.S.-led bombing campaign.
According the map, among the locations in Iraq and Syria where IS is operating training camps are Mosul, Raqqah, Nenewa, Kobane, Aleppo, Fallujah, and Baiji.
The group MEMRI obtained a video of an IS training camp in Nenewa Province, Iraq, dated Oct. 1, 2014.
The video shows a desert outpost with tan tents and around 100 fighters who take part in hand-to-hand combat exercises, weapons training, and religious indoctrination….
mortimer says
Obama is cooperating with the Saudis and Turkey to destroy Assad and his heretical Alawite Muslims. They are using ISIS to do it. They want ISIS to do it.
ISIS is however more interested in destroying the Shi’ites, Kurds and religious minorities in the region.
Obama is hiding the real agenda: allowing Soddy Barbaria and Turkey to create a pipeline through Syria.
Linde Barrera says
To Mortimer- As per your 12:16 pm post of Aug 29, 2015 where you state “Obama is hiding the real agenda: allowing Soddy Barbaria (Saudi Arabia) and Turkey to create a pipeline through Syria.” Would you please expound on this idea, Mortimer? By “pipeline” I assume you mean “oil pipeline”? I think you are extremely ‘with-it” and highly intelligent, no flattery here. I am interested in learning why this pipeline needs an American president’s blessing, and why the Saudis want to team up with Turkey. I have no clue about this, and to the best of my recall, you are the first person to comment on JW about this. Thank you in advance for your response, Mortimer.
Don McKellar says
I am sure that Mortimer will answer you, but here is what you need know to easily understand Barrack Obama and the entire Middle East situation.
a) Obama is a moslem in the tradition of Sunni.
b) Saudi Arabia and the Turkish president are Sunni moslems. Turkey is mostly Sunni moslem.
c) Syria is in the hands of a man who is not a Sunni moslem, but of a “heritic” sect of Islam, which makes him an apostate in the eyes of Sunni moslems including Obama and Saudi Arabia.
d) Turkey needs oil. Saudis have oil. Oil can be made cheaper between the two with a pipeline — but first they must kill the apostate leadership of Syria who belong to the wrong branch of Islam, as he won’t bow to the Saudis.
e) Obama, who has LITERALLY bowed to the former Saudi king (google it) will help make this happen because it is in his Sunni moslem interests.
d)
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Aw c’mon, Don. Obama ain’t a Moslem, he’s a fake Christian. Everybody knows that. This comes naturally to him as a fake black American who rose to the elevated position of serving as the fake editor of the uber-prestigious Harvard Law Review. However, his time as a communist agitator on the southside of Chicago was not fake, he was a real pinko commie agitator, in fact the son of a card carrying communist who went by the same name before he was immolated when he drove his car into that tree after a quart or so of scotch; he was also mentored by another card carrying communist after that one was exiled to Hawaii by the FBI, which had tired of his newspapers calling for the overthrow of the U.S. government.
Don McKellar says
Eerily, everything Alarmed Pig Farmer says is also true with regards to Obama and can be fact-checked and verified. All I can offer to argue that Obama is a “secret” moslem is his reference to his Islamic faith in an interview, his refusal to say that he is not a moslem, his bowing to Saudi royalty, his reference in his bio to saying he’ll stand with the moslems above anybody else, his moslem salute to African leaders in that photograph, and his entire foreign policy and actions since entering office, both foreign and domestic, favoring moslems above all others, and any chance he had to strike at the state of Israel that he can get away with.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
allowing Soddy Barbaria
Say! There ain’t no sod in Arabia. The place is sand, you couldn’t grow a single ear of corn on that land. Pu-leeze, let’s all of us show the requisite respect for The Kingdom, the place that gave us the Holy Prophet Mohammed and to this day houses the Kaaba. This is why the President of the United States of America bowed to the King, and deeply.
mortimer says
Each of the training camps should be attacked by commando raiding parties and prisoners taken as informants. Such raids will give information about vulnerabilities that can be exploited. A consistent strategy can then be devised to disable ISIS’s military component and communications.
K. says
There is no such thing as “collateral damage” in a pure islamic environment, because Islam does not distinguish between military and civilians. Everybody is a fighter for Allah by definition. Collateral damage is if there are still Christians or other unbelievers around.
Shmooviyet says
True! IS creates their own what the Pentagon would call ‘collateral damage’ by teaching small boys to fight and behead, encouraging women to marry their fighters, and building camps near civilian facilities.
A boy proudly hefting a severed head for the camera is already gone, IMHO. Lost in an airstrike? Too bad.
Would that brainwashed kid and his pals be BO’s next generation of “dreamers”?
Bamaguje says
When Obama waged his illegal war to help Libyan Islamists depose Gaddafi, NATO flew thousands of bombing sorties without the same concern for civilian casualties. There is also no undue concern for civilians during drone strikes on Al-Qaeda.
One has to conclude that Obama is not really interested in defeating ISIS. Even if it is true ISIS training camps harbor civilians, exempting the camps from attack only encourages ISIS to hold more civilian hostages there.
On the other hand if the camps are bombed, there would be no point of ISIS keeping hostages there.
Walter Sieruk says
By not targeting ISIS training camps the Pentagon is not doing it’s job. What gives ? For the reality of the truth is that being on the receiving end of many very strong powers of military might is not only the way to defeat ISIS but to also send those callous characters of ISIS a message in the only language that they will understand. Which is the language of violence. For those ISIS villains will not respond to reason. The fiends of ISIS neither understand or care anything at all about reason or logic The ISIS savages are only interest in their mad Islamic dream of establishing a caliphate. Therefore the cruel ,brutal and hideous fiends of are engaging in the malicious and vicious jihad of Islam. Thus the Pentagon really do this job and come down hard on the training camps of ISIS . As Thomas Jefferson had so well stated “With every barbarous people…force is law.”
Edgar Allen says
One more piece of evidence that Obama is a traitor. This “fight” against ISIS is a sham, a fig leaf, just like his Iran deal. The aim is to pretend to do something, while actually doing the opposite. He does NOT want to seriously destroy ISIS, nor does he want to prevent Iran from getting the nukes.
His treason is so obvious, it is sickening that the idea is not even discussed in the media, who normally thrive on speculation.
Walter Sieruk says
That the Pentagon in not be doing it’s of striking down hard on the training camps of ISIS is an odd and strange thing. Shame on those in the Pentagon who don’t let those who are willing do their job. Also, Shame on ISIS for being so totally evil and full of madness. As the Bible teaches “The hearts of men are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts ,and afterwards they join the dead.” Ecclesiastes 9:3. The ISIS callous characters of ISIS are in deed full of evil .that they have proven, many times over, by their cruel, brutal, vicious add murderous actions. Likewise there hearts are full of madness in their Islamic daydream of have an actual caliphate and then thus conquering the world for Islam. Furthermore,even though it’s a sorry shame that the Pentagon is not doing what is should be doing it still stands that in the end the ISIS villains are not going to get away with many malicious and malice-filled murderous evils. For their extreme wickedness will come back on them in the end and come back down on them hard. For as they say “What goes around comes around.” The reason that this saying is true is because it’s upheld in the Bible .Which teaches that “A man reaps as he sows.” Galatians 6:7. To add to this, the ISIS villains are so terribly violent that the curse from the Bible might well be on them. .For the Bible reads “may disaster hunt down men of violence.” Psalm 14:11. [N.I.V.]
Sam says
“Pentagon not targeting Islamic State training camps” Shows that Obama administration is clueless. In fact we should not send one soldier in that area under this Traitor Obama anyhow. He gets our troops get killed anyhow.
wildjew says
Is it possible, Barack Hussein Obama has deep sympathies for the world of Islam because he is a Muslim? Is it racist to ask?
Carlos Danger says
Why it’s almost as if the Obama administration is not interested in pursuing a military solution (much less a victory) in dealing with the Caliphate.
Shame on serving General Offices in the U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps, and Naval Flag Officers for not speaking out now. By not doing so they are colluding with the appeasers.
Harry_the_Horrible says
At another I site, I read that the Pentagon is not targeting ISIS training camps because they are afraid of “collateral damage.” They are afraid that they would kill ISIS dependents – women and children (do sex slaves count as dependents?)
One would think that we have learned enough about ISIS dependents to understand that “collateral damage” is a GOOD THING.
Ian H says
Yes the pentagon could probably paste those sites. The pentagon has the capacity to paste pretty much anything it wants. So this must be a deliberate strategy. Ask yourself why the pentagon would do that?
Think about what would happen if the pentagon started waging successful war on ISIS. Would Muslims around the world would rally to its defense. Maybe some clever sod in the basement of the pentagon thinks the better strategy is to leave them alone in the hope that other Muslim’s will become sickened by their brutality. Perhaps they think that pasting ISIL might be a really quick way to lose the war for hearts and minds.
If that is the plan then I fear they have miscalculated. Muslims in the region don’t seem to be as outraged by the brutality and ongoing genocide as might have been hoped. Most countries in the region find themselves paralysed dealing with ISIL sympathizers. Some seem to be offering ISIL tacit support. Turkey for example seems to be using ISIL to wage war on the Kurds. And somebody continues to ship ISIL military hardware.
Aton says
Hussain Obama wants to destroy ISIS??
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
I like a nice laugh on a Sunday morning.
Aton
Aton says
As I said before here, what needs to happen is:
… Assad needs to admit he is not a Muslim (he is a Nazarene, the Church of Jesus).
… Assad need to face the shame, and ask for an alliance with Israel.
… Assad and Israel face a common enemy, it would make sense.
… Assad may not like the Jews, for the same reason the Catholics used to hate the Jews, it is time to bury that hatchet.
… Assad already has an unwritten alliance with the Syriac Christians, so why not the Jews too?
… The combined might of Israeli airpower and Assad groundforces would easily push ISIS back.
… Having aligned with the West, once the war is over Syria could open up to Western influence and trade as never before.
… Having aligned with the West, Syria could attract back all those displaced Christians from Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.
Come on Assad, what about it? Your people cannot remain in an isolated and embattled enclave forever. You will run out of resources and hardware within five years, if you don’t do something.
Aton
Baucent says
I seem to remember the last time politicians limited the “rules of engagement” for the military in a war in a place called Viet-nam, it didn’t end so well. Either get in and do the job, or get out.
John Magne Trane says
In here isn’t resolve more like it.
Cliffhild says
—Oh come on, everyone, stop being mealy-mouthed about this, just say it:
Obama is a Muslim and therefore, according to the Koran, must convert to Islam those parts of the world which are not yet Islamic — by Koranic-approved persuasion, destruction or death.
And you must admit, he’s doing very well at the moment, isn’t he?
duh_swami says
Well, ‘you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.’
You you not been fooled…Rasool Obama is a stealth jihadist enabling jihad whenever possible…He;’s leading a double life in the WH, one as president, the other as jihadist…His words and deeds confirm this for those who are paying attention…
Nic says
Obama is the president of US acting to the best interest of US. He is not a muslim. Now next year get a republican to blow the middle east and you can all be happy. Israel should help to cut money supply to isis there come from Soudi Arabia even turkey. I only care about the Christians under isis control. Show me how to protect them and stop talking muslim.US presidents and people from Mars. Fix the middle east mess before they come over and fix us here and protect christians no matter what.
Jay Boo says
In the morning the Muslims rise
The Muezzin Call for Prayer crows
In the evening another virgin cries
Muslims won’t admit Islam is filth
Yet every Muslim knows
Matthieu Baudin says
“…The coalition continues to use air power responsibly,” Weidley said July 1. “Highly precise deliveries, detailed weaponeering, in-depth target development, collateral damage mitigation, and maximized effects on Daesh, are characteristics of coalition airstrike operation in Iraq and Syria…”
Golly, are we pursuing a strategy of ‘winning hearts and minds’? Are we scared of people becoming angry? There seems to be an assumption that time is on our side, but what we seem to have is great displays of violence by ISIS that further spurs recruitment amongst a steadily fanaticised international Sunni community.
Angemon says
Seems like the kind of questions the media should be asking the CiC – the Clo…er, Commander in Chief.
bullfrogger says
Really now . We have little reluctance blowing up some jihadi eating goat in his front room in the middle of town but we won’t hit training camps out of fear of collateral damage . He should say it straight and loud ” The president hates America and his ultimate goal is it’s destruction . These decisions are just another step in that process” .