ISIS has lost 98 percent of its territory -- mostly since Trump took office, officials say

[shockedcanadian]

Wise move to not micromanage the war efforts from Washington, unless it's a major state to state offensive. When dealing with cowardly terrorists and you have the intel, get it done.

Trump is smart enough to know his competencies (business) and let others with the expertise in their areas do what they do best. Excellent work These animals are becoming less and less a threat to the world everyday, and the entire planet owes American military a great debt.

ISIS has lost 98 percent of its territory -- mostly since Trump took office, officials say

ISIS has lost 98 percent of the territory it once held -- with half of that terror group's so-called "caliphate" having been recaptured since President Trump took office less than a year ago, U.S. military officials said Tuesday.

The massive gains come after years of "onerous" rules, when critics say the Obama administration “micromanaged” the war and shunned a more intensive air strategy that could have ended the conflict much sooner.

“The rules of engagement under the Obama administration were onerous. I mean what are we doing having individual target determination being conducted in the White House, which in some cases adds weeks and weeks,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the former head of U.S. Air Force intelligence. “The limitations that were put on actually resulted in greater civilian casualties.”

But the senior director for counterterrorism in former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council pushed back on any criticism the former president didn’t do enough to defeat ISIS.

“This was a top priority from the early days of ISIS gaining the type of territorial safe haven in particular, there was recognition that safe havens for terrorist groups can mean terrorist plots that extend — not just into the region — but to Europe and conceivably into the United States,” said Joshua Geltzer, author of “US Counter-Terrorism Strategy and al-Qaeda: Signalling and the Terrorist World-View,” now a visiting professor at Georgetown Law School.

The latest American intelligence assessment says fewer than 1,000 ISIS fighters now remain in Iraq and Syria, down from a peak of nearly 45,000 just two years ago. U.S. officials credit nearly 30,000 U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and regional partners on the ground for killing more than 70,000 jihadists. Meanwhile, only a few thousand have returned home.

 

[Marion Morrison]

SAA is rallying to put yet another beatdown on the Daesh!

Kinda nice what can be done when the terrorists aren't being supported by taxpaying US citizens.

 

[TheOldSchool]

"Mostly since Trump took office"

Good fucking grief

 

[TheOldSchool]

SAA is rallying to put yet another beatdown on the Daesh!

Kinda nice what can be done when the terrorists aren't being supported by taxpaying US citizens.

Yes Assad, Hezbollah, Iran, and Putin are very pleased

 

[Marion Morrison]

SAA is rallying to put yet another beatdown on the Daesh!

Kinda nice what can be done when the terrorists aren't being supported by taxpaying US citizens.

Yes Assad, Hezbollah, Iran, and Putin are very pleased

More importantly, so are innocent Syrian civilians.

 

[TheOldSchool]

SAA is rallying to put yet another beatdown on the Daesh!

Kinda nice what can be done when the terrorists aren't being supported by taxpaying US citizens.

Yes Assad, Hezbollah, Iran, and Putin are very pleased

More importantly, so are innocent Syrian civilians.

Well, the ones who took that side anyways

 

[Marion Morrison]

SAA is rallying to put yet another beatdown on the Daesh!

Kinda nice what can be done when the terrorists aren't being supported by taxpaying US citizens.

Yes Assad, Hezbollah, Iran, and Putin are very pleased

More importantly, so are innocent Syrian civilians.

Well, the ones who took that side anyways

The ones that don't want ISIS-type government, yes.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Guess while you guys are celebrating Trump's "victory" in the ME, you guys are forgetting that they are migrating to other countries.

One of the places that they are massing and taking over is in the Philippines.

 

[Marion Morrison]

Guess while you guys are celebrating Trump's "victory" in the ME, you guys are forgetting that they are migrating to other countries.

One of the places that they are massing and taking over is in the Philippines.

Oh? Do tell us how that's going for them with Maduro in charge.

 

[TheOldSchool]

SAA is rallying to put yet another beatdown on the Daesh!

Kinda nice what can be done when the terrorists aren't being supported by taxpaying US citizens.

Yes Assad, Hezbollah, Iran, and Putin are very pleased

More importantly, so are innocent Syrian civilians.

Well, the ones who took that side anyways

The ones that don't want ISIS-type government, yes.

The revolution began because of ISIS-type government

 

[ABikerSailor]

Guess while you guys are celebrating Trump's "victory" in the ME, you guys are forgetting that they are migrating to other countries.

One of the places that they are massing and taking over is in the Philippines.

Oh? Do tell us how that's going for them with Maduro in charge.

Wow................your ignorance is showing again Maid Marion. Maduro isn't the president of the Philippines, Duterte is. It would help if you could reference the right leader, but I see that facts are your kryptonite.

And yeah, Islamic terrorists have been steadily moving in and carving out places in the Philippines.

In City of Ruins, Philippines’ Battle Against ISIS Rages On

MARAWI, Philippines — The houses still standing after more than three months of fierce urban combat in Marawi are barely holding on — pocked with bullet holes on the outside and blackened by fire from within.

“I really can’t say when we will be able to finish this,” said Brig. Gen. Melquiades Ordiales, with the Philippine Marines. A cackle of small-arms fire and the thuds of mortar shell explosions could be heard in the distance as soldiers targeted another pocket of militant fighters.

Rubble and debris had been swept from the street around him, making room for a large group of journalists, including three from The New York Times, who were allowed to visit a newly recaptured part of the city this week.

With the battle now past the 100-day mark, it was the first time in months that the military had allowed the press in. And though the tour was tightly choreographed, there was no hiding either the profound destruction from airstrikes and artillery barrages, or the fact that the fighting remains intense. Just Thursday, three soldiers were reported killed, and 52 more were injured.


Marawi and the surrounding area, on the southern island of Mindanao, was once home to 200,000 people, the biggest Muslim-majority city in the Philippines. It is now a mostly emptied-out field of wreckage, contested by a dwindling group of Islamist militants who claim loyalty to the Islamic State, and by the government of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has vowed to root them out no matter the cost.

 

[Marion Morrison]

Guess while you guys are celebrating Trump's "victory" in the ME, you guys are forgetting that they are migrating to other countries.

One of the places that they are massing and taking over is in the Philippines.

Oh? Do tell us how that's going for them with Maduro in charge.

Wow................your ignorance is showing again Maid Marion. Maduro isn't the president of the Philippines, Duterte is. It would help if you could reference the right leader, but I see that facts are your kryptonite.

And yeah, Islamic terrorists have been steadily moving in and carving out places in the Philippines.

In City of Ruins, Philippines’ Battle Against ISIS Rages On

MARAWI, Philippines — The houses still standing after more than three months of fierce urban combat in Marawi are barely holding on — pocked with bullet holes on the outside and blackened by fire from within.

“I really can’t say when we will be able to finish this,” said Brig. Gen. Melquiades Ordiales, with the Philippine Marines. A cackle of small-arms fire and the thuds of mortar shell explosions could be heard in the distance as soldiers targeted another pocket of militant fighters.

Rubble and debris had been swept from the street around him, making room for a large group of journalists, including three from The New York Times, who were allowed to visit a newly recaptured part of the city this week.

With the battle now past the 100-day mark, it was the first time in months that the military had allowed the press in. And though the tour was tightly choreographed, there was no hiding either the profound destruction from airstrikes and artillery barrages, or the fact that the fighting remains intense. Just Thursday, three soldiers were reported killed, and 52 more were injured.


Marawi and the surrounding area, on the southern island of Mindanao, was once home to 200,000 people, the biggest Muslim-majority city in the Philippines. It is now a mostly emptied-out field of wreckage, contested by a dwindling group of Islamist militants who claim loyalty to the Islamic State, and by the government of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has vowed to root them out no matter the cost.

O my! I used the wrong name for the leader of a foreign island country halfway around the world!

My goodness! That must mean I'm a bad man, and lie all the time.

GFY you leftist twattle.

From your own posting:

contested by a dwindling group of Islamist militants who claim loyalty to the Islamic State, and by the government of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has vowed to root them out no matter the cost.

Thank you for proving what I asserted correct, and providing the correct name. ISIS is gaining minus shit in the Phillipines.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Trump's nascent approach to dealing with ISIS is the one shred of coherence I've observed coming from the man. To be sure the differences between his and Obama's approach are imperfect (which is okay to a point) and incremental, which makes legitimate one's describing Trump's ISIS-approach as substantively the same as Obama's and thereby not according him sole and seminal credit for the gains thus far realized in the fight against ISIS.

What has been Trump's key-success factor as goes injecting coherence into his ISIS-approach and acting on it? His general lack of knowledge about the matter, lack of coherent principles and lack of concern for humanity along with his generally turpitudinous ethics. Whereas prior Presidents' strategies sought to balance the ends of defeating ISIS with the bigger-picture exigencies mandated by their comprehensive understanding of the situation, their humaneness, authoritarian tendencies, civilian casualties, and domestic human rights records of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other countries fighting insurgent upheavals and Iranian destabilization in the Middle East, Trump is not thus conflicted. He is wholly comfortable with destroying ISIS and, after the fact, discovering and maybe addressing whatever "f*ck ups" result from doing so in the way he's chosen to do so.

That approach would be fully acceptable to me were I of the mind that the most important threat we face derives from ISIS' existence and activities. ISIS a problem that needs to be eliminated, much as a wasp nest under one's eaves needs to be removed. ISIS is, among the collection of problems the U.S. face, small yet highly sensationalizable threat to domestic U.S. citizens, residents and visitors. As much is seen in merely counting the quantity of ISIS-enacted attacks in the U.S. There are zero such attacks and there have been about half-a-dozen ISIS-inspired attacks in the U.S. Though I don't like the itinerant consequences and implications of the concept of acceptable losses, I would be remiss were I to abide procrustean formulations/analyses that not apply it when prioritizing and evaluating the overall merit how, when and on what be expended our national resources (blood and treasure), or my or anyone else's resources for that matter.

Because I find Trump's ISIS approach consistent with his remarks about it and because I find it coherent, I'm willing to acquiesce with quietude to his using it. Because I find Trump untrustworthy, I'm not about to assert qualitatively that it's the right, best, good or even so-so approach to use. The best I can say is that it's not blatantly bad.

 

[shockedcanadian]

Trump's nascent approach to dealing with ISIS is the one shred of coherence I've observed coming from the man. To be sure the differences between his and Obama's approach are imperfect (which is okay to a point) and incremental, which makes legitimate one's describing Trump's ISIS-approach as substantively the same as Obama's and thereby not according him sole and seminal credit for the gains thus far realized in the fight against ISIS.

What has been Trump's key-success factor as goes injecting coherence into his ISIS-approach and acting on it? His general lack of knowledge about the matter, lack of coherent principles and lack of concern for humanity along with his generally turpitudinous ethics. Whereas prior Presidents' strategies sought to balance the ends of defeating ISIS with the bigger-picture exigencies mandated by their comprehensive understanding of the situation, their humaneness, authoritarian tendencies, civilian casualties, and domestic human rights records of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other countries fighting insurgent upheavals and Iranian destabilization in the Middle East, Trump is not thus conflicted. He is wholly comfortable with destroying ISIS and, after the fact, discovering and maybe addressing whatever "f*ck ups" result from doing so in the way he's chosen to do so.

That approach would be fully acceptable to me were I of the mind that the most important threat we face derives from ISIS' existence and activities. ISIS a problem that needs to be eliminated, much as a wasp nest under one's eaves needs to be removed. ISIS is, among the collection of problems the U.S. face, small yet highly sensationalizable threat to domestic U.S. citizens, residents and visitors. As much is seen in merely counting the quantity of ISIS-enacted attacks in the U.S. There are zero such attacks and there have been about half-a-dozen ISIS-inspired attacks in the U.S. Though I don't like the itinerant consequences and implications of the concept of acceptable losses, I would be remiss were I to abide procrustean formulations/analyses that not apply it when prioritizing and evaluating the overall merit how, when and on what be expended our national resources (blood and treasure), or my or anyone else's resources for that matter.

Because I find Trump's ISIS approach consistent with his remarks about it and because I find it coherent, I'm willing to acquiesce with quietude to his using it. Because I find Trump untrustworthy, I'm not about to assert qualitatively that it's the right, best, good or even so-so approach to use. The best I can say is that it's not blatantly bad.

None of these decisions have perfect outcomes. It's about maximum results to defend your citizens while not getting caught in another lengthy quagmire or sacrificing so many precious U.S lives, both those in uniform or the innocent citizens the terrorists will target.

His willingness to remain hands off and let his generals take care of this has shown to be effective. With the constant geopolitical tug of war from other nations looking to harm America, be it funding and radicalizing from Iran or some other country, you deal with imperfect information. As long as they are dealt a blow of justice and weakened significantly, it is a win all around. Much cheaper too.

Now America can focus it's efforts on other risks such as N Korea or China.