The Islamic State Thread

US HOSTAGE FREED AFTER BEING HELD IN SYRIA FOR TWO YEARS

by Guillaume Decamme

An American held hostage for 22 months by an Islamic rebel group in Syria was freed Sunday, just days after a video showed the slaying of a fellow US journalist at the hands of jihadists.

"Finally he is returning home," US Secretary of State John Kerry said, confirming the release of Peter Theo Curtis, a 45-year-old author and freelance journalist whose disappearance had not been previously reported.

Curtis was handed over to United Nations peacekeepers in the village of Al Rafid, Quneitra, in the Golan Heights and, after undergoing a medical checkup, was transferred to US representatives, the UN said.

News of his release came less than a week after a grisly video surfaced showing the beheading of American reporter James Foley at the hands of an Islamic State militant.

"Particularly after a week marked by unspeakable tragedy, we are all relieved and grateful knowing that Theo Curtis is coming home after so much time held in the clutches of Jabhat Al-Nusrah," Kerry said, referring to the Al-Nusra Front, another Islamic rebel group operating in Syria.

Kerry said the United States had reached out to more than two dozen countries for help in securing Curtis' release, and that of any other American held hostage in Syria.

US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said she expected Curtis to be reunited with his loved ones shortly.

Curtis' family thanked both the governments of the United States and Qatar, as well as others who helped negotiate his release.

"My heart is full at the extraordinary, dedicated, incredible people, too many to name individually, who have become my friends and have tirelessly helped us over these many months," his mother Nancy said.

"Please know that we will be eternally grateful," she added, pleading for privacy.

According to the family's statement, Curtis was captured shortly before he crossed into Syria in October 2012 and was held since then "by the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra or by splinter groups allied with Jabhat al-Nusra."

The Islamic State and Al-Nusra, who both have thousands of fighters in their ranks, are rooted in Al-Qaeda in Iraq but the two groups have been openly at war with each other in Syria since early this year.

Details of Curtis' release remain unclear. However, his mother said the family was "repeatedly told by representatives of the Qatari government that they were mediating for Theo's release on a humanitarian basis without the payment of money."

Describing him as a published author and freelance journalist from Boston and Vermont, the family statement said Curtis writes under the name Theo Padnos.

Curtis' mother recalled Foley's fate, saying she got to know the late journalist's family.

"We are so relieved that Theo is healthy and safe and that he is finally headed home after his ordeal, but we are also deeply saddened by the terrible, unjustified killing last week of his fellow journalist, Jim Foley, at the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria," she said.

Rice also referenced Foley's killing, which she said "shocked the conscience of the world," and said the United States "will continue to use all of the tools at our disposal to see that the remaining American hostages are freed."

"We will continue to work tirelessly on behalf of all Americans who are held overseas so that they can be reunited with their families as well," she said.

The US envoy to the United Nations, Samantha Power, echoed those remarks, saying Curtis, Foley and other journalists "traveled to Syria to shed light on the unspeakable horrors being committed against innocents --only to become victims of brutal forces unleashed and abetted by the conflict."

Foley's family, meanwhile, prayed for the safety of his fellow hostages as hundreds gathered for a mass to celebrate his life as a witness on the front line.

Before the service, they told AFP that they hoped their son's legacy would be an inspiration to others supporting a free press and an end to suffering in war zones.

"James stood for love and hope," Diane Foley said.

Britain's ambassador to the United States said meanwhile that authorities were "close" to identifying the hooded Islamic State jihadist who beheaded Foley.


Source : Sapa-AFP /dm
Date : 25 Aug 2014 04:10
 
ISLAMIC STATE SEIZES LAST REGIME OUTPOST IN NORTHEAST SYRIA

Islamic State militants seized full control of a major Syrian airbase, the last government outpost in the north-eastern province of al-Raqqa, a watchdog group said Monday.

"The Tabqa military facility has fallen in the hands of the IS fighters, but the Syrian army air force has carried several air strikes on the base earlier Monday," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told dpa.

"There are 150 Syrian army soldiers whose fate is still unknown," he said, adding that most of the missing soldiers are mainly from the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect.

The Observatory said late Sunday that more than 500 people have been killed in the battle to seize Tabqa.

At least 346 extremists have been killed and hundreds more wounded since the Islamic State launched its offensive Tuesday.

The watchdog said more than 170 Syrian army soldiers were killed.

Most government troops withdrew into the desert, west of the Tabqa military airport after the jihadists left the road open for them to evacuate, the Observatory said.

State news agency SANA reported that the military had "regrouped after evacuating the airport and continue to strike precise blows at the terrorist groups in the area."

Islamic State, which has captured swathes of northern Iraq since June, established full control last year of al-Raqqa province with the exception of three heavily defended military bases.

It has made considerable territorial gains in eastern Syria in recent months, capturing most of Deir al-Zour province to link its strongholds in al-Raqqa and across the border in Iraq's western Anbar province.


Source : Sapa-dpa /kd
Date : 25 Aug 2014 11:07
 
US TO TRACK JIHADISTS IN SYRIA WITH SPY PLANES

The United States is poised to send spy planes into Syria to track Islamic State jihadists whose advances have sparked international concern and American air strikes in neighbouring Iraq.

A US official confirmed the plans after Syria said on Monday it was willing to work with the international community, including Washington, to tackle extremist fighters.

But American officials said they did not plan to ask Damascus for permission for the flights, despite Syrian insistence that any military action on its soil must be coordinated in advance.

International concern about IS has been rising after a lightning offensive by the group through parts of Iraq and a string of brutal abuses, including the murder of US journalist James Foley.

The United Nations has accused IS and affiliated groups in Iraq of carrying out "ethnic and religious cleansing" that could amount to crimes against humanity.

On Monday, Damascus said for the first time that it was willing to work with the international community, including the United States and Britain, to tackle "terrorists" including IS and Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

But Foreign Minister Walid Muallem also made it clear that Syria would not accept unilateral military strikes by the United States or any other country.

"Any violation of Syria's sovereignty would be an act of aggression," he said.

There would be "no justification" for strikes on Syrian territory "except in coordination with us to fight terrorism".

Muallem said Syria was seeking cooperation within an international or regional coalition, or at the bilateral level within the framework of a recent UN Security Council resolution targeting IS and Al-Nusra.

But it remains unclear whether the international community will be willing to cooperate publicly with President Bashar al-Assad's regime, which has been engaged in a brutal effort to put down an uprising that began in March 2011.

Washington has accused Assad's regime of using chemical weapons against his own people and carrying out other widespread abuses.

International concern about IS has also grown, with Washington beginning air strikes against the group in Iraq on August 8 in a bid to roll back its advances.

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey acknowledged after the strikes began that IS could not be defeated in Iraq alone.

"Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organisation that resides in Syria? The answer is no," he said.

The White House says that no decision has been taken on whether to carry out air strikes in Syria.

But American aircraft have already entered Syrian airspace covertly at least once, during a failed bid to rescue hostages including Foley who was later beheaded by IS militants.

Foley's murder and advances by IS in both Syria and Iraq have heightened fears about the group, which emerged from Al-Qaeda's one-time Iraqi affiliate but has since parted ways.

UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said Monday that IS and affiliated groups in Iraq were "systematically targeting men, women and children based on their ethnic, religious or sectarian affiliation and are ruthlessly carrying out widespread ethnic and religious cleansing.

"Such persecution would amount to crimes against humanity," she said in a statement.

On Sunday, IS also cemented its control over an entire province in Syria for the first time, seizing the Tabqa military airport in a bloody battle that killed hundreds of people.

The air base was the last outpost controlled by the Syrian military in Raqa province, which has now become an IS stronghold.

In Iraq, the group has seen its momentum curbed in some areas by Kurdish forces backed by American air strikes, but it still holds significant areas that federal troops are still struggling to regain.

On Tuesday, a car bomb struck a crowded Baghdad intersection away from the frontline fighting, killing at least 10 people in an area where a suicide bomber targeted Shiite worshippers the day before, killing 11.


Source : Sapa-AFP /tk
Date : 26 Aug 2014 10:48
 
IRAN GAVE WEAPONS TO IRAQ'S KURDS: BARZANI

Iran was the first country to provide Iraq's embattled autonomous Kurdish region with weapons to fight off jihadist-led militants, president Massud Barzani said on Tuesday.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran was the first state to help us... and it provided us with weapons and equipment," Barzani said at a joint news conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Militants led by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group launched a major offensive in June that overran large areas of Iraq, and began a renewed push earlier this month that saw Kurdish forces pushed back towards their regional capital of Arbil.

The Kurdish setbacks sparked a campaign of US air strikes in northern Iraq and an international effort to provide them with arms and ammunition, and they have since managed to claw back some territory from the militants.

Zarif, who arrived in Iraq on Sunday, reiterated his assertion that while Iran is supporting its neighbour to the west, it is not doing so with forces on the ground.

There have been reports of Iranian forces fighting in Iraq, and despite Zarif's denial, evidence points to a more direct military role by Tehran.

State media reported that an Iranian pilot was killed fighting in Iraq, and several Iranian Su-25 warplanes are also in the country.


Source : Sapa-AFP /lk
Date : 26 Aug 2014 13:36
 
US GIVING SYRIA INTELLIGENCE ON JIHADISTS: SOURCES

The United States has begun reconnaissance flights over Syria and is sharing intelligence about jihadist deployments with Damascus through Iraqi and Russian channels, sources told AFP on Tuesday.

"The cooperation has already begun and the United States is giving Damascus information via Baghdad and Moscow," one source close to the issue said on condition of anonymity.

The comments came a day after Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said Syria was willing to work with the international community against the jihadist Islamic State group, and US officials said they were poised to carry out surveillance flights over Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said foreign drones had been seen over the eastern province of Deir Ezzor on Monday.

"Non-Syrian spy planes carried out surveillance of Islamic State positions in Deir Ezzor province on Monday," the Britain-based monitoring group's director, Rami Abdel Rahman, said.

On Tuesday, Syrian warplanes bombed Islamic State positions in several areas of Deir Ezzor, an oil-rich province in the east of Syria, most of which is held by the jihadists.

A regional source told AFP that "a Western country has given the Syrian government lists of Islamic State targets on Syrian territory since just before air raids on Raqa, which started in mid-August."

The Islamic State, which emerged from Al-Qaeda's Iraq branch but has since broken with the worldwide network, controls large parts of Deir Ezzor and seized full control of Raqa province, further up the Euphrates Valley, on Sunday, with the capture of the army's last position, the Tabqa air base.

It has declared an Islamic "caliphate" in areas under its control in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, where US war planes have been targeting its positions since August 8.

US officials said Monday that Washington was ready to send spy planes into Syria to track the group's fighters but that the moves would not be coordinated with the government in Damascus.

Muallem warned Monday that any unilateral military action on its soil would be considered "aggression."


Source : Sapa-AFP /lk
Date : 26 Aug 2014 17:16
 
BRITISH POLICE URGE PUBLIC TO INFORM ON 'ASPIRING TERRORISTS'

British police Tuesday urged people to identify "aspiring terrorists" among their family members, friends and neighbours after the killing of US journalist James Foley, apparently by a man with an English accent.

The appeal also comes amid growing government concern that British passport holders who travel to fight in Iraq and Syria could return to carry out attacks on home soil.

Jihadist group the Islamic State (IS) posted a graphic video online last week showing the beheading of Foley, who had been missing since his 2012 capture in Syria.

"We are appealing to the public, family members and friends to help identify aspiring terrorists; they may be about to travel abroad, have just returned or be showing signs of becoming radicalised," said Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, the country's most senior police officer on counter-terrorism, in a statement.

"Every reasonable person in the country has been touched by the pitiless murder of James Foley at the hands of Islamic State terrorists, and the murderer's apparent British nationality has focused attention on extremism in the UK as well as the Middle East."

He said British police had arrested five times more people in the first half of this year compared with 2013 for "Syria-related" offences.

There were 69 arrests in the first half of 2014 on suspicion of offences including travelling abroad for terrorist training, preparing acts of terrorism and fundraising for terrorist activity.

Some 1,100 pieces of extremist material are also being removed from social media websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, he added, 800 of them relating to Syria or Iraq.

Intelligence services say 500 Britons have travelled to Syria or Iraq to fight alongside jihadists in the last few years.

The government is under increasing pressure to take steps to combat radicalisation and Home Secretary Theresa May said Saturday that she was considering introducing new powers.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond on Sunday called it an "utter betrayal" that the killing had apparently been carried out by a Briton.

Rowley also said that "significant progress" was being made in the hunt for Foley's killer and Britain's ambassador to the US, Peter Westmacott, told CNN Sunday that the country's authorities were "close" to identifying the man.


Source : Sapa-AFP /lk
Date : 26 Aug 2014 17:17
 
US: 'NO PLANS' TO COORDINATE WITH SYRIA ON FIGHTING IS

The United States said Tuesday it does not intend to coordinate with the government of President Bashar al-Assad on targeting Islamic State militants on Syrian territory.

"There are no plans to coordinate with the Assad regime as we consider this terror threat," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, after Syrian officials demanded Washington ask permission for any action over its territory.

Earnest spoke amid reports that US spy planes and drones had already started flights over Syria to collect intelligence as President Barack Obama contemplates air strikes against IS militants who have already come under US attack in Iraq.

Earnest dismissed Syrian demands that it be notified of any US activity and offers to work with Washington to combat terrorism, saying that the United States did not even recognize the Assad regime as the legitimate rulers of Syria.

For more than two weeks, US warplanes have been carrying out a limited air campaign against IS militants in Iraq, with most of the bombing raids conducted near Mosul dam.

The grisly murder of American journalist James Foley by IS jihadists and mounting concern in the West over the threat posed by the extremists has prompted speculation that Washington may expand its air war to Syria.

Earnest reiterated on Tuesday that Obama had so far taken no decision to conduct air strikes in Syria.


Source : Sapa-AFP /lk
Date : 26 Aug 2014 17:36
 
AMERICAN WOMAN IS BEING HELD HOSTAGE IN SYRIA
By LARA JAKES

The Islamic State militant group is holding hostage a young American woman who was doing humanitarian aid work in Syria, a family representative said. The 26-year-old woman is the third American known to have been kidnapped by the militant group.

The Islamic State group recently threatened to kill American hostages to avenge the crushing airstrikes in Iraq against militants advancing on Mount Sinjar and the Kurdish capital of Irbil.

The 26-year-old woman was captured last year while working with three humanitarian groups in Syria. A representative for the family and U.S. officials asked Tuesday that the woman not be identified out of fear for her safety. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

More than a week ago, freelance journalist James Foley of Rochester, New Hampshire, was beheaded by the Islamic State group, which kidnapped him in November 2012. Foley, 40, had worked in a number of conflict zones across the Mideast, including Iraq, Libya and Syria. He was in northern Syria on assignment for Agence France-Press and the Boston-based news organization GlobalPost when the car he was riding in was stopped by four militants in a contested battle zone that both Sunni rebel fighters and government forces were trying to control.

The Islamic State video of Foley's beheading also showed another of the missing American journalists, Steven Sotloff, and warned he would be killed next if U.S. airstrikes continued. U.S. officials believe the video was made days before its release and have grown increasingly worried about Sotloff's fate.

Other American hostages have been held by other militant groups, including Peter Curtis from Boston, who was recently released by al-Nusra Front, a rival Sunni extremist group. Another U.S. freelance journalist, Austin Tice of Houston, disappeared in Syria in August 2012 and is believed to be held by the Syrian government. Tice was working for The Washington Post, McClatchy Newspapers and other media outlets when he was kidnapped.

The Islamic State militant group is seeking to create a caliphate across parts of Syria and Iraq. The militant group is so ruthless in its attacks against all people they consider heretics or infidels that it has been disowned by al-Qaida's leaders.

President Barack Obama said in a speech in North Carolina on Tuesday that "America does not forget" and vowed justice for Foley's murder.

In its annual report last November, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists estimated at least 30 journalists have been kidnapped or have disappeared in Syria - held and threatened with death by extremists or taken captive by gangs seeking ransom. The CPJ described the widespread seizure of journalists as unprecedented and largely unreported by news organizations in the hope that keeping the kidnappings out of public view may help to negotiate the captives' release.

The group reported 52 journalists have been killed since Syria's civil war began in early 2011 and documented at least 24 other journalists who disappeared earlier this year but are now safe.

Separately, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders last fall cited higher figures, saying at least 60 "news providers" are being detained and more than 110 have been killed.

---

Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann in Washington and Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this report.


Source : Sapa-AP /gm
Date : 27 Aug 2014 06:32
 
IRAQ STRIKES JIHADISTS AS FEARS GROW FOR THOUSANDS IN BESIEGED TOWN

Iraqi warplanes have begun targeting jihadists besieging the Shiite Turkmen town of Amerli amid growing fears for the safety of thousands of residents short of food and water and facing a "massacre".

With some 12,000 Turkmen trapped in the northern town, US President Barack Obama is "nearing a decision" to authorise strikes and aid drops in the area, The New York Times reported.

The report added that Obama is also seeking to piece together an international coalition for potential military action in Syria, where the US has begun reconnaissance flights.

And nine countries have committed to providing arms to Iraq's Kurdish peshmerga forces, who are fighting in north and east Iraq against Islamic State jihadists leading a sweeping offensive that has overrun large areas of the country.

Iraqi warplanes carried out nine air strikes on Tuesday against the militants besieging Amerli, an officer said.

Helicopters delivering aid and ammunition to the area are targeted with machinegun fire on the way in, and mortar rounds once they land, said Nihad al-Bayati, who worked as an engineer at the Tikrit oil refinery but is now fighting to protect his hometown.

"The pilots are suicidal," he said, but the aircraft have been able to land and depart so far.

Time is running out for Amerli's residents, who face danger both because of their Shiite faith, which jihadists consider heresy, and their resistance against the jihadists, which has drawn deadly retribution elsewhere.

There is "no possibility of evacuating them so far", and only limited humanitarian assistance is reaching the town, said Eliana Nabaa, the spokeswoman for the UN mission in Iraq.

UN Iraq envoy Nickolay Mladenov has called for an urgent effort to help Amerli, saying residents who have been under siege for more than two months face a "possible massacre" if it is overrun.

Residents are suffering from a major shortage of both food and water and there is no electricity, said Bayati.

US officials warn that the Turkmen are facing the same dangers as those faced by thousands of Iraqi Yazidis, who were driven to Mount Sinjar after attacks by the militants, many of them dying of thirst and starvation.

Countries are lining up to arm Iraqi Kurdish forces, which were pushed back by jihadists toward their regional capital Arbil earlier this month but have clawed back ground with the help of US strikes and international assistance.

Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel put the number of countries on board at eight, while Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani said that Iran has provided arms and equipment as well, bringing the total to at least nine.

The United States has meanwhile launched reconnaissance flights of IS positions in Syria, multiple sources said, in surveillance seen as a precursor to possible US strikes that would greatly expand its conflict against IS.

The US focus on Syria comes after President Bashar al-Assad's regime said on Monday it was willing to work with the international community, including Washington, to tackle extremist fighters.

But American officials said they did not plan to coordinate with Damascus on targeting IS militants in Syria, despite Syrian insistence that any military action on its soil must be discussed in advance.

International concern about IS has been rising after a lightning offensive by the group through parts of Iraq and a string of brutal abuses, including the murder of US journalist James Foley.

The US began air raids against IS in Iraq on August 8, in a bid to roll back its advances. It said that two air strikes near Arbil on Tuesday destroyed two IS armed vehicles and damaged another.

But US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey has acknowledged that the group cannot be defeated "without addressing that part of the organisation that resides in Syria".


Source : Sapa-AFP /kd
Date : 27 Aug 2014 12:27
 
IS EXECUTES 'DOZENS' OF CAPTURED SYRIAN SOLDIERS: NGO

Islamic State fighters have executed "dozens" of Syrian soldiers fleeing Tabqa military airport in the north, a monitor said Thursday, with the jihadists boasting on Twitter they had killed 200 troops.

"Dozens of Syrian soldiers captured while fleeing... after the IS overran Tabqa airbase were executed by the jihadists during the night," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

The jihadists seized the airport on Sunday after weeks of bitter fighting with loyalist forces, cementing their control over Raqa province, capital of their self-declared Islamic "caliphate".


Source : Sapa-AFP /aa
Date : 28 Aug 2014 10:54
 
Escalation of Muslim Extremism in the UK.....
Where some of these fighters are being recruited from.

[video=youtube;SgKMI1wV0ps]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgKMI1wV0ps[/video]
 
it's 40 minutes long, best to download it:
[video=youtube;AUjHb4C7b94]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUjHb4C7b94[/video]
 
ISLAMIC STATE EXECUTES MORE THAN 160 SYRIA TROOPS: MONITOR

Islamic State fighters have executed more than 160 Syrian soldiers it captured during its storming of a key northern air base this week, a monitoring group said on Thursday.

The jihadists boasted on Twitter that they had killed 200 defeated troops and posted video of what they said was the garrison in headlong flight.

"IS executed more than 160 Syrian soldiers in three different places in Raqa province yesterday and at dawn today," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The soldiers were fleeing the jihadists' seizure of the Tabqa base on Sunday, which cemented IS control over Raqa province, capital of its self-declared Islamic "caliphate".

Abdel Rahman said the defeated garrison comprised 1,400 soldiers, 200 of whom were killed and 700 of whom managed to escape.

Of the other 500, dozens were captured on Wednesday night as they attempted to cross the desert to government-held territory in the Orontes Valley to the west.

IS posted video footage showing young men in underwear being marched barefoot along a desert road. Militants shouted "Islamic State" and "There's no going back".

In Syria, the group controls all of Raqa province and much of Deir Ezzor further down the Euphrates Valley towards the Iraqi border.

It also controls most of the Sunni Arab heartland of neighbouring Iraq, north and west of Baghdad, including second city Mosul.

It has repeatedly posted often gruesome videos, both as a warning to those joining up to the Syrian army and as a propaganda tool to recruit volunteers from the wider Islamic world.


Source : Sapa-AFP /lk
Date : 28 Aug 2014 15:26
 
The Syrian rebels, are they essentially ISIS militants, and where is Assad standing?

I'm unsure with the reports I read, don't know about Assad hitching with ISIS and thus a rebellion or the other way around...
 
Fulcrum29 said:
The Syrian rebels, are they essentially ISIS militants, and where is Assad standing?

I'm unsure with the reports I read, don't know about Assad hitching with ISIS and thus a rebellion or the other way around...
Click to expand...

The Syrian 'rebels' isn't a homogeneous grouping. You have groups like the Free Syrian Army which is made up of defectors and other rebel groups but who aren't Islamic extremists. Then you have groups like Al-Nusra Front who are full on looney Islamic militants.

ISIS picked up recruits from a lot of different areas, but most of the other Syrian rebels as well as Assad is fighting them.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
The Syrian 'rebels' isn't a homogeneous grouping. You have groups like the Free Syrian Army which is made up of defectors and other rebel groups but who aren't Islamic extremists. Then you have groups like Al-Nusra Front who are full on looney Islamic militants.

ISIS picked up recruits from a lot of different areas, but most of the other Syrian rebels as well as Assad is fighting them.
Click to expand...

I'm aware, it is in regard with:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.612621

and

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.612717

and

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.612848

Above articles are related. What can escalate this scenario is Assad teaming up with ISIS... The whole thing with Gaza had me thinking, Assad and Hezbollah have "business" to conclude with Hamas. There is way too many theories, but Israel is going to have it rough.
 
Fulcrum29 said:
I'm aware, it is in regard with:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.612621

and

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.612717

and

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.612848

Above articles are related. What can escalate this scenario is Assad teaming up with ISIS... The whole thing with Gaza had me thinking, Assad and Hezbollah have "business" to conclude with Hamas. There is way too many theories, but Israel is going to have it rough.
Click to expand...

Really doubt that would ever happen. They're sworn enemies. Iran/Hezbollah/Assad are peas in a pod.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Really doubt that would ever happen. They're sworn enemies. Iran/Hezbollah/Assad are peas in a pod.
Click to expand...

Yes, but their is a chance that the US will need to establish a temporary alliance with Assad in order to direct strikes at a possible ISIS incursion in the immediate territories. Then to note that Assad warned the US that war will come to them should they strike ISIS within their borders. Destabilizing the entire region can be very dangerous to Israel.

Interesting Vox article: http://www.vox.com/2014/8/26/6067019/ally-assad-bad-idea-isis

I do however had the idea that Russia was looking at the ISIS escalation in order to proceed with their plans in Ukraine. The UN resource allocation is being thrown around. Boko Haram is also hindering progress.
 
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