21st Century Wire says…
Hubris of this magnitude should raise serious concerns.
Watch a video of this report here:
The US has just released an intelligence report claiming that the number of ISIS fighters on the ground has decreased from 31,000 to 25,000 in Iraq and Syria.
The Mail reports, ‘Battlefield casualties and desertions, as well as a US-led military campaign, may have led to the roughly 20 percent decrease in fighters, officials said.‘
‘Ground fighting efforts by coalition partners of the United States, as well as endeavours by US-backed Iraqi security forces, tribal militias and moderate opposition groups in Syria, have also contributed to the progress in the fight against ISIS, officials said.‘
It is interesting to note the structure of the first sentence, as it does not directly attribute the ‘battlefield casualties and desertions’ to the US campaign, yet the main line of argument continues to imply that it is US actions that have primarily caused this result.
Emily Horne, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council said, “The decrease reflects the combined effects of battlefield deaths, desertions, internal disciplinary actions, recruiting shortfalls, and difficulties that foreign fighters face traveling to Syria.”
For some odd reason neither The Mail nor US officials seem to be able to mention the Russian intervention in Syria, which has been widely credited as being the central force breaking the back of ISIS.
In the first week of Russia’s attacks on the terrorists they destroyed 40% of the groups’ terror infrastructure, and Putin has unleashed cruise missiles that caused the mass desertions among fighters that the US is now reporting.
Indeed, the ‘US military-led campaign’ has been widely criticized for being ‘insignificant’, with Russian officials going as far as suggesting that “maybe their stated goal is not entirely sincere? Maybe it is regime change?“
The only ‘victory’ that 21WIRE could find to attribute to the US campaign was a bombing run assisting Kurdish fighters. Unless you count rising profits for the American military industrial complex as a victory too.
Even as we now find ourselves firmly in the grasp of a new year, it is still Russia doing the vast majority of the fighting against ISIS. In just the last three days, Putin hit 900 targets forcing the jihadists to flee all the way back to the Turkish border; where the Russians also believe the Turks are planning an invasion.
But, you will not be hearing about that from Western mainstream media or US intelligence reports.
KEEP UP WITH THE REAL SYRIAN STORY: 21st Century Wire Syria Files
