US General Says Islamic State Gaining Ground in Afghanistan

[rug]

Associated Press | Aug 15, 2015 | by Robert Burns

The Islamic State group is making small inroads in Afghanistan and could grow into a more worrisome threat, a U.S. Army general said Thursday.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon from his offices in Kabul, Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner said the Islamic State, which rose to prominence by capturing large swaths of Syria and Iraq, is not yet capable of coordinating military operations in more than one part of Afghanistan at a time.

"We see their capabilities increasing somewhat but not to the point where they can conduct operations that you're seeing in Iraq and Syria, although we do note the potential for them to evolve into something more serious, more dangerous," he said.

Shoffner said the Islamic State's fighters are clashing with the Taliban in areas of Afghanistan where the Islamic State is encroaching on Taliban territory. He called this a destabilizing development, with Afghan civilians caught in the middle.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/08/15/us-general-says-islamic-state-gaining-ground-in-afghanistan.html

To quote another Robert Burns,

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain

I smell the soil being turned for another "surge".

[4lbs]

1. Bill Maher had something to say about ISIS last night.

He said the combined military strength of Sunni ISIS/ISIL is about 30,000 troops.

The combined military strength of all the Middle Eastern countries that are Shiite + Iran (Iran is not in the Middle East, it is in Asia) is about 6 million.


So, if ISIS/ISIL is so disruptive to all these countries, why can't they combine their forces, outnumbering ISIS 200 to 1, and simply wipe them out in a few days?

Are their armies really that inept and stupid? Maybe.

[rug]

2. I saw that. He showed a pie graph with ISIS as a sliver compared to the surrounding contries.

Can't let data get in the way of a war.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. No one is taking about how we are blasting Syria into rubble as we use ISIS as an excuse.....

Hardly a peep.

[6chars]

5. to be fair

not all of Syria's rubble was blasted by us.

[davidn3600]

3. The mid-east is too fractured along political lines to do that

Some of these countries don't really like each other at all.

The big problem with the mid-east in general, and why peace is so elusive, is you got a population that is divided along many different lines. And over the course of years there has been so much violence and tyranny and instability that it's difficult to really get them to work together anymore. There is always someone wanting to settle a score that screws it up. Then to make it even more confusing you have Israel there trying to push its own interests. Then you have the Americans there pushing their interest. You have the Russians pushing their interest. So why would anyone be surprised that area of the world is a cluster-fuck?