Can ISIS defeat Assad in Syria? And what next in Iraq after Ramadi?
Thanks again, W, for creating the biggest clusterfuck of the 21st century.
What a mess. ISIS continues to gain strength and capture key cities in both Syria and Iraq. And this all lands directly at the doorstep of bushchen. Yeah, destroying Iraq's armed forces was a brilliant strategy, you unrepentant war criminals.
Homs is a straight shot from Palmyra, which isn't only home to amazing ruins but oil fields and Assad's most notorious political prison. Ramadi is 60 miles from Baghdad and ISIS is already moving toward it.
Again, this is W's gift to the world.
The ISIS March Continues: From Ramadi on to Baghdad?
Anyone telling you the Islamic State is in decline isn’t paying attention.
Once again, in less than a year, Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions en masse and fled in the face of advancing Islamic State forces. The fall of the city of Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province, leaves no doubt about the jihadi group’s capabilities: Despite U.S. attempts to paint it as a gravely weakened organization, the Islamic State remains a powerful force that is on the offensive in several key fronts across Syria and Iraq.
Ramadi is far from the only front on which the Islamic State is advancing. The group last week launched an offensive, supported by multiple suicide operations, in the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor against President Bashar al-Assad regime’s holdouts in the military air base. In the central city of Palmyra, it attacked a regime base near the ancient Roman ruins. It also recently clashed with Syrian rebels and the regime in the eastern countryside of Aleppo, the provinces of Homs and Hama, and the southern city of Quneitra, near the border with Israel.
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Therefore, the prevalent narrative that the Islamic State is destined to decline appears to be false. Rather than suffering from resource and manpower shortages, the group is only increasing its grip on the local populations in its strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa, Syria; it is also attracting a considerable number of recruits, especially among teenagers.
As with the occupation of Mosul, the fall of Ramadi will have a ripple effect across both the Syrian and Iraqi battlefields. In Syria, Iraqi Shiite militias fighting alongside the Assad regime will feel compelled to return to defend their home country, a move that would further undercut the regime’s ability to stop recent rebel advances. There are signs this is already happening: The leader of one Damascus-based militia announced that he was returning to “wounded Iraq.”
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https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/19/ramadi-is-the-canary-isis-islamic-state-iraq/