Alex Moreau, who recently returned to Vancouver following seven months with the YPG, said in an interview Monday he believed governments did not want their citizens joining the fight but were reluctant to say so for political reasons.
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“All I know is when we go someplace, it’s easier to go there now than it was a year ago”.
If IS attacked again they would have been able to put up a considerable fight.
“The number of fighters on the front line have diminished”, said MacFarland, including that the numbers are “pretty soft”. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.
RAF pilots flying strike missions against ISIS across Iraq and Syria have killed scores of ISIS gunmen and destroyed many terrorist facilities. The US attacked again in 2014, and is already dramatically redrawing the map once again, with the emphasis on air war meaning more wholesale destruction.
“I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq”, said U.S. President Barack Obama when he announced the authorization for airstrikes in Iraq in 2014.
As it has lost territory in Iraq and Syria, the caliphate has frequently reverted back to its origins as a terrorist insurgent group, known then as al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI).
Similar examples of senior IS commanders executing their own men have been reported in the last few months, including reportedly boiling them alive in water. The group’s leadership includes many former Iraqi military officers loyal to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and much of the group’s weaponry was seized from Iraqi army arsenals in the aftermath of the USA invasion in 2003.
As operations to retake the militant-held city of Mosul ramp up, Iraqi Christians displaced from the area by the Islamic State group say that even if the militants are defeated militarily, the country will not be safe for minorities.
Williams said British special forces were based alongside American special forces in “add-on American facilities” adjacent to a Jordanian military base near where the Jordanian, Iraqi and Syrian borders meet. While Sinjar is technically “liberated” the vast majority of its residents still live in tented camps for the displaced scattered throughout Iraq’s north.
Some 3,800 USA soldiers are now in Iraq.
Still, about 6,500 coalition troops – mostly American – have deployed in the anti-ISIS fight.
“The few people of us who were watching this group develop from 2010 to 2014 knew very well that this was going to be a very long-term battle, and the idea that no USA troops were going to be involved was just a fantasy”, Lister told AFP.
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“The primary grievance relates to atrocities being committed against civilians, with many accusing world leaders of turning a blind eye to the ongoing suffering of those caught up in the conflict”, the report says.
