Islamic State Crisis Megathread (ISIS/ISIL/IS)

[Limborg]

Special forces aren't going to do shit in this situation, only a tactic approach with an army does.

Actually they're the only thing that can succeed in this situation. Counterinsurgency is tough on regular forces. Assymetric units such as Task Force Black have the skills and experience at hunting terrorists like this to ensure that it will succeed.

An army can't differentiate between a civilian and an IS insurgent (ex. Iraq, Afghanistan) however SOF with intelligence assets can excel.

The problem is, a few hundred soldiers (at most) cannot handle this situation. The only thing that they can do is to hunt down the important figures. Insurgents often dress like civillians, even this can be hard for special forces since they don't know everyone that is an insurgent. In the end the biggest fights will have to be fought by armies rather then special forces.

Besides that, i don't even think that this Task Force Black is doing that much... ISIS is still pretty new and there isn't a load of information like with other groups. The best special forces that operate in Iraq and Afghanistan are (in my opinion) the Quds Forces from Iran. In the end they are the ones that managed to turn the tides in both Syria as Iraq. They have more experience then any other special forces in this kind of situation and they (since they are from the region) will have more intel on what's going on everywhere, even the shady parts.

But as said before, special forces can only achieve a very limited amount of goals, the main goal is to whipe IS out, and this can only be achieved through battles fought by regular soldiers.

[Germanic Templars]

Good news, lads. Australia's role in Iraq may expand if strong US - led alliance is seen. Will provide link later. Kinda hard to do on phone.

[Limborg]

Two caliphates, the plot thickens.

And with the way Libya is currently going it's only going to get worse, Islamists are making huge gains there too.

I heard about that aswell, government already fled the capital and all... I hope the US and EU are proud of the Calipathe democracy they brought to Libya...

[Limborg]

Good news, lads. Australia's role in Iraq may expand if strong US - led alliance is seen. Will provide link later. Kinda hard to do on phone.

I don't think such Alliance will come, especially since a US led coalition won't stop ISIS. ISIS operates in Syria aswell you know, and any airstrikes there will need permission from Syria, otherwise Syria will act on it and they will shoot down those planes. Aslong as the US refuses to cooperate with Syria and Iran a US led coalition is practicly worthless.

[Organized States]

Special forces aren't going to do shit in this situation, only a tactic approach with an army does.

Actually they're the only thing that can succeed in this situation. Counterinsurgency is tough on regular forces. Assymetric units such as Task Force Black have the skills and experience at hunting terrorists like this to ensure that it will succeed.

An army can't differentiate between a civilian and an IS insurgent (ex. Iraq, Afghanistan) however SOF with intelligence assets can excel.

The problem is, a few hundred soldiers (at most) cannot handle this situation. The only thing that they can do is to hunt down the important figures. Insurgents often dress like civillians, even this can be hard for special forces since they don't know everyone that is an insurgent. In the end the biggest fights will have to be fought by armies rather then special forces.

Besides that, i don't even think that this Task Force Black is doing that much... ISIS is still pretty new and there isn't a load of information like with other groups. The best special forces that operate in Iraq and Afghanistan are (in my opinion) the Quds Forces from Iran. In the end they are the ones that managed to turn the tides in both Syria as Iraq. They have more experience then any other special forces in this kind of situation and they (since they are from the region) will have more intel on what's going on everywhere, even the shady parts.

But as said before, special forces can only achieve a very limited amount of goals, the main goal is to whipe IS out, and this can only be achieved through battles fought by regular soldiers.

Quite the contrary. The Special Forces are much better suited to fighting an enemy like ISIS than regular soldiers. The CIA, has shittons of information on ISIS (we do on everybody). The Special Forces, are made to look like they blend in (no military haircuts, and if they do go on combat ops, they have no flags or identifying patches). The Special Forces dress like Insurgents, they can talk like insurgents, and they can live like insurgents, the Special Forces were made to deal with groups like ISIS, and they hunt them down. The US and UK Special Forces have been eating shit and taking names in the Middle East for a while, most of the operators are fluent in Arabic and a number of other middle eastern dialects, and have more combat experience than we could ever imagine.

They are the world's most trained killers hunting the world's most dangerous people.

[Organized States]

Two caliphates, the plot thickens.

And with the way Libya is currently going it's only going to get worse, Islamists are making huge gains there too.

The Egyptians and the UAE have us covered there.

[Germanic Templars]

Good news, lads. Australia's role in Iraq may expand if strong US - led alliance is seen. Will provide link later. Kinda hard to do on phone.

I don't think such Alliance will come, especially since a US led coalition won't stop ISIS. ISIS operates in Syria aswell you know, and any airstrikes there will need permission from Syria, otherwise Syria will act on it and they will shoot down those planes. Aslong as the US refuses to cooperate with Syria and Iran a US led coalition is practicly worthless.

Not so, we are making preparations to track down ISIS officials and setting up plans on how to engage them. Talks with Syria will happen. No doubt they would be happy to see us rain steel from the sky.

[Vamtrl]

The weapons industry must be having orgasms because of the IS.

Also, the Iranians have sent in a few hundred soldiers into Northern Iraq to combat IS.

[Papait]

The weapons industry must be having orgasms because of the IS.

Also, the Iranians have sent in a few hundred soldiers into Northern Iraq to combat IS.

Theyve been there for a while now, but refused to admit it at first.
Also Hezbollah has been ther for a really long time (and they're doing an amazing job, and should get at least as much credit as the peshmerga gets), which could also count as 'Iranian' support.

[Ganos Lao]

Good news, lads. Australia's role in Iraq may expand if strong US - led alliance is seen. Will provide link later. Kinda hard to do on phone.

I don't think such Alliance will come, especially since a US led coalition won't stop ISIS. ISIS operates in Syria aswell you know, and any airstrikes there will need permission from Syria, otherwise Syria will act on it and they will shoot down those planes. Aslong as the US refuses to cooperate with Syria and Iran a US led coalition is practicly worthless.

The US seems to be going by Secretary Hammond's view that "the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend" when it comes to the Middle East. The Brits already ruled out working with Assad, saying it'd ruin their plans for harnessing moderate Sunni opinion, so if the US cooperates, they'd have to then pressure the Brits to get on board.

[Limborg]

The problem is, a few hundred soldiers (at most) cannot handle this situation. The only thing that they can do is to hunt down the important figures. Insurgents often dress like civillians, even this can be hard for special forces since they don't know everyone that is an insurgent. In the end the biggest fights will have to be fought by armies rather then special forces.

Besides that, i don't even think that this Task Force Black is doing that much... ISIS is still pretty new and there isn't a load of information like with other groups. The best special forces that operate in Iraq and Afghanistan are (in my opinion) the Quds Forces from Iran. In the end they are the ones that managed to turn the tides in both Syria as Iraq. They have more experience then any other special forces in this kind of situation and they (since they are from the region) will have more intel on what's going on everywhere, even the shady parts.

But as said before, special forces can only achieve a very limited amount of goals, the main goal is to whipe IS out, and this can only be achieved through battles fought by regular soldiers.

Quite the contrary. The Special Forces are much better suited to fighting an enemy like ISIS than regular soldiers. The CIA, has shittons of information on ISIS (we do on everybody). The Special Forces, are made to look like they blend in (no military haircuts, and if they do go on combat ops, they have no flags or identifying patches). The Special Forces dress like Insurgents, they can talk like insurgents, and they can live like insurgents, the Special Forces were made to deal with groups like ISIS, and they hunt them down. The US and UK Special Forces have been eating shit and taking names in the Middle East for a while, most of the operators are fluent in Arabic and a number of other middle eastern dialects, and have more combat experience than we could ever imagine.

They are the world's most trained killers hunting the world's most dangerous people.

Again, those few hundred men are still no match for the tens of thousends of men that ISIS has. that's the whole point of it.
And no, UK/US special forces don't have that much of combat experience, especially if you compare them with the Quds forces for example.

The last line says it all, they are good at hunting down people, but not armies. armies battle against armies. You can take down their leaders, but others will replace them. And hell, if these special forces of you where so good, and the CIA would have all the info, then why weren't they able to find that American that was killed by ISIS? they looked for him but didn't find him. Ah that's right, becouse they don't know that much as one would hope they would.

And with the way Libya is currently going it's only going to get worse, Islamists are making huge gains there too.

The Egyptians and the UAE have us covered there.

Aistrikes won't defeat them, so no, nothing is covered.

I don't think such Alliance will come, especially since a US led coalition won't stop ISIS. ISIS operates in Syria aswell you know, and any airstrikes there will need permission from Syria, otherwise Syria will act on it and they will shoot down those planes. Aslong as the US refuses to cooperate with Syria and Iran a US led coalition is practicly worthless.

Not so, we are making preparations to track down ISIS officials and setting up plans on how to engage them. Talks with Syria will happen. No doubt they would be happy to see us rain steel from the sky.

I thought that the US already stated that it will not cooperate with Syria. Or was that the UK? dunno, anyhow, Germany also stated that same thing.
Syria will take down US/UK&other aircrafts if they enter Syrian airspace without permission, you don't have to worry about that. Still, if the US is going to play the "leader" of the "coalition", then we all know that it isn't going to end well, the US is a pile of crap when we talk aobut wars, they never fully finished or even won a war without messing up the entire country.
The only way to finish this extremist wave over the middle-east is a cooperation between the regional nations, nothing more and nothing less.

The weapons industry must be having orgasms because of the IS.

Also, the Iranians have sent in a few hundred soldiers into Northern Iraq to combat IS.

Iran has been there for a whiile now, in both Syria and Iraq. Claims go from 300 to 2,000 troops in Iraq alone. They also sended three attack aircrafts to Iraq to bomb ISIS. Then there is also the Basij militia, military volunteers from Iran that have been going to Syria and Iraq, wether this is led by the government or by other means is not clear. At last there is also Hezbollah, who operates mainly in Syria but it is reported that it also trains Shia militia's such as the Mahdi Army and the Iraqi Hezbollah in Iraq.

[The Lone Alliance]

And with the way Libya is currently going it's only going to get worse, Islamists are making huge gains there too.

The Egyptians and the UAE have us covered there.

Not exactly, though I'm sure if it comes to it Egypt will send troops in if it comes to it.

The situation is Libya is more complicated than it looks though, right now the non-Islamist government is based out of Tobruk with the support of Zintan, most of the military, and a few other places, Benghazi is fighting amongst itself between moderate Islamists and radical Jihadists.

The Amazigh mountain rebels have been boycotting the whole thing all year so they don't really matter.
The Zintan militias and the Misrata militias are spending their time dueling each other which is partly why Tripoli fell, the Zintan rebels got smashed by the Misrata ones.

The Misrata rebels are all "Fuck you I'll do what I want" and are only on board because of they hate Zintan and the government for telling them to knock it off.

And I'm sure the Gaddafi supporters are anti-everyone.

[Distruzio]

Ah. Then I'd have to disagree with you. "We" (America) should stay the fuck out. It didn't work well in our favor the last few times we intervened in the middle east.

Again why I said we should only keep up the air war, let the local fighters handle the civilians since they obviously know the culture better then many American soldiers.

Aerial sorties contribute significantly to "our" poor image in middle eastern nations. So, too, does "our" tendency to hip fire reactionary sanctions on offensive regimes. Both aerial sorties and sanctions adversely affect the population of a targeted nation rather than the offending government. If America wants to weigh in on the conflict here discussed then I'd council humanitarian aide ONLY. No military activity.

[Arcerion]

Quite the contrary. The Special Forces are much better suited to fighting an enemy like ISIS than regular soldiers. The CIA, has shittons of information on ISIS (we do on everybody). The Special Forces, are made to look like they blend in (no military haircuts, and if they do go on combat ops, they have no flags or identifying patches). The Special Forces dress like Insurgents, they can talk like insurgents, and they can live like insurgents, the Special Forces were made to deal with groups like ISIS, and they hunt them down. The US and UK Special Forces have been eating shit and taking names in the Middle East for a while, most of the operators are fluent in Arabic and a number of other middle eastern dialects, and have more combat experience than we could ever imagine.

They are the world's most trained killers hunting the world's most dangerous people.

Again, those few hundred men are still no match for the tens of thousends of men that ISIS has. that's the whole point of it.
And no, UK/US special forces don't have that much of combat experience, especially if you compare them with the Quds forces for example.

The last line says it all, they are good at hunting down people, but not armies. armies battle against armies. You can take down their leaders, but others will replace them. And hell, if these special forces of you where so good, and the CIA would have all the info, then why weren't they able to find that American that was killed by ISIS? they looked for him but didn't find him. Ah that's right, becouse they don't know that much as one would hope they would.

So lets address all the issues with this statement, because we need to understand that Task Force Black, is the best option for fighting ISIS.

those few hundred men are still no match for the tens of thousends of men that ISIS has

In no way is TF Black going to risk valuable operators taking out grunts. Its the same reason since the Roman era, you take out the commanders. Napoleonic era, British rifleman shot officers. Today, we take out leaders. Mindless grunts are mindless, that's why their useless unless there is someone controlling them. As such, when you say these few hundred men can't doing anything against ISIS' massed forces, you're entirely right. But what good are those masses without command and control?

UK/US special forces don't have that much of combat experience

This is just a blatant mistruth. Firstly, Delta, DEVRGU, and the SAS (which was founded in 1941, *poof* there goes your experience rebuttal) have been operating in the Middle East since the 90s, and have been heavily involved with COIN in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and East Africa (which has cultural and geographic similarities to much of the Middle East). As such, we have seen them change from Charlie Sheen's Navy SEALs of old into the lean, mean Zero Dark Thirty machine we know today. As for the ethnic Kurds, who do you think has been training them as of late? And during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the ongoing Iraq War.

Remembering that the Kurds themselves have been doing a fantastic, bang-up job of mauling ISIS, but in no way are they going to survive without SOF intervention.

So as for experience, I don't think anyone outside the JSOC / NATOSOF umbrella has more experience than these teams forming TF Black when it comes to COIN operations.

they are good at hunting down people, but not armies. armies battle against armies

I remember Iraq. I remember Afghanistan. I have read about Vietnam. ISIS is not an army, its an insurgency with a lot of funding and weapons. Armies don't fight insurgents. They aren't built for that kind of 4th Generation Warfare. SOF is. End of story.

You can take down their leaders, but others will replace them.

And you kill. Kill again. And again. How many leaders are they going to keep propping up if they realize they are going to be dragged weeping from their beds at 3AM by an angry British paratrooper whilst more pin their families to the concrete floor? Or annihilated by a drone? Or shot in the daylight by an SFOD raid? There is a reason that Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden hide. It is because they are afraid. But we still find them.

And hell, if these special forces of you where so good, and the CIA would have all the info, then why weren't they able to find that American that was killed by ISIS?

The amount of radio and ELINT traffic pouring out of Syria is tremendous. There is a whole war going on there. Try finding one guy in a basement who is meant to be hidden. Finding leaders is different, because ISIS can't not use electronics if they want to thrive. Therefore, finding IS leadership is easier.

Oh, and heads up, they tired on several occasions but hit dry holes. Link.

So to conclude the rant:

• The Kurds are the faction to arm and support, but with backing they'll collapse. Its a time game and ISIS has more of that resource.
• TF Black has the experience and material necessary to take on the deconstruction of IS leadership.
• IS is not an army, its an insurgency. Would you consider the Taliban an army?
• Obama and Cameron have pledged not to deploy regular, or conventional forces. Because of wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. We have learned.
• IS as a whole is controlled by a select few, as the low-level initiative and leadership has no leeway. That is why if you took apart a Marine Regiment, starting at its Colonel, you could get right down to a Corporal. Because Western armies promote leadership and low-level initiative. ISIS controls what are essentially Muslim terror droves. Telling them where to go, who to kill, and filming it all.

Woops, forgot to rebut some earlier statements.

Still, if the US is going to play the "leader" of the "coalition", then we all know that it isn't going to end well, the US is a pile of crap when we talk aobut wars, they never fully finished or even won a war without messing up the entire country.

*cough* Gulf War *cough*. You know, a coalition. Led by the United States. Finished it. Won it. And yeah, they messed up Iraq, militarily. Was like Muhammad Ali fighting a frickin toddler after the air campaign. Iraq still had Saddam afterwards, by the way, so the government was destroyed, which meant they didn't mess up the country. Actually just finished Schwarzkopf's biography, and a main Coalition objective was to prevent the collapse of Iraq, but to destroy its military capability.

The only way to finish this extremist wave over the middle-east is a cooperation between the regional nations, nothing more and nothing less.

Yes, we must trust those mature, self-governing and stable Middle Eastern nations with the fate of a crucial part of the world petroleum infrastructure. Sure, bud. The reason the West meddles in the Middle East is because they Middle East can't be trusted with the West's vested interests.

[Blakk Metal]

It goes deep.

[Geilinor]

Conspiracy theorists claim Hillary Clinton helped to create ISIS.

[Farnhamia]

Conspiracy theorists claim Hillary Clinton helped to create ISIS.

Well, there was that feller in Congress, Joe something, who created al-Qaeda.

[Blakk Metal]

Conspiracy theorists claim Hillary Clinton helped to create ISIS.

Why do people so often mistake stupidity for malice?

[Geilinor]

Conspiracy theorists claim Hillary Clinton helped to create ISIS.

Why do people so often mistake stupidity for malice?

Conspiracy theorists have agendas.

[Gauthier]

Why do people so often mistake stupidity for malice?

Conspiracy theorists have agendas.

How long before someone says Ibrahim is secretly taking orders from Obama?

[Germanic Templars]

Conspiracy theorists have agendas.

How long before someone says Ibrahim is secretly taking orders from Obama?

How did you know I was in the middle of writing that? Er... I mean... Fuck...

Ah well, no doubt someone will write that knowing how crazy the internet is.

[Aterna]

http://www.ibtimes.co.in/task-force-bla ... ers-607575

Ok, maybe not as good a source as the New York Times or Reuters, but apparently Task Force Black is already going after ISIS-could be rumors, could be true.

[Blakk Metal]

This shit needs to stop, it's a fucking white hole of stupidity. I just read somebody say Crazy Abe was the Antichrist.

[Gauthier]

This shit needs to stop, it's a fucking white hole of stupidity. I just read somebody say Crazy Abe was the Antichrist.

"Welcome to the AntiChrist Idol Finale! Tonight it boils down to deciding who between Barack Hussein Obama and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will become the One and Only Seed of the Serpent!"

[Blakk Metal]

This shit needs to stop, it's a fucking white hole of stupidity. I just read somebody say Crazy Abe was the Antichrist.

"Welcome to the AntiChrist Idol Finale! Tonight it boils down to deciding who between Barack Hussein Obama and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will become the One and Only Seed of the Serpent!"

We already went over this, the IS was created by Obama's subordinates Hillary Clinton and the Mossad to justify the recolonization of the Middle East.