"this message are delivered to you the people of American"
The situation in Iraq and Syria is a disaster. But there's one happy fact about this scenario
ISIS is stalled and in Iraq it's actually losing ground.
If these trends continue ISIS will be unable to hold on to territory in Iraq in the foreseeable future.
When ISIS swept northern Iraq in June 2014
they looked unstoppable. "How these victories possible these victories come only
from Allah
and that is how with the small numbers of soldiers that we have we take these massive victories"
But their weaknesses began to be exposed starting
as early as August 2014
when ISIS made boneheaded mistake. It invaded Iraqi Kurdistan and threatened Erbil
the Iraqi Kurdish capital.
"we will not stop fighting will not put down our weapons until you reach your lands."
The Peshmerga defended themselves and then turned
the tables on ISIS and began offensive maneuvers
which seriously crimp ISIS' style in northern Iraq.
bring every nation that you want to come and fight us it means nothing to us.
moreover, there were Americans in Erbil and the United States was not going to allow ISIS
to pose a serious threat to its own citizens.
So, in August United States began bombing ISIS to protect kurdish holdings
and to protect the Yazidi minority in Iraq who ISIS threatened to exterminate.
"And to the leading to Obama , to Tony Abbott, I say this:
these weapons that we have the soldiers who will not stop fighting will not put
down their weapons."
Iraqi army that was swept over June was week disorganized and were people who
fled from the first site of battle.
It's smaller now but it shown battlefield capabilities
particularly the special forces
in combat with ISIS and it's buttressed by an enormous amount Shia militias.
These militias together with the Iraqi army are much more disciplined and much more
effective than the scattered week Iraqi army in June 2014 was
and now that ISIS is facing a serious foe that has adapted itself to their tactics,
they're no longer is capable of taking anyone by surprise.
the US air strikes since August and September have been more effective than most observers suggested.
The reason that's true is ISIS' obsession with territory. They wants to
openly defend territory and that means putting troops
out in ways that make them vulnerable to air power in conventional battles.
that's why US air strikes have been so effective in disrupting ISIS.
"Bring your planes, bring everything you want to us because they will not harm us. Why?
because we have Allah! And this is something that you do not have."
To say ISIS is losing
isn't to say that ISIS is going to disintegrate sometime in the next year or so.
this may take a while. And moreover the group may somehow reconstitute itself
as an insurgent group or terrorist group after loses control territory.
The fact that ISIS is losing refers to the fact that it it
increasingly incapable of holding on the territory which is its key mission right at the Islamic State
Shouting in Arabic