Leading Iraqi Shi'ite Says Islamic State Shrugging Off U.S. Air Strikes

[Purveyor]

Source: Reuters

Reuters By Samia Nakhoul, Maher Chmaytelli and Ahmed Rasheed
7 hours ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Flush with cash and weapons, Islamic State is attracting huge numbers of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria and withstanding U.S.-led air strikes that are failing to hit the right targets, a powerful Iraqi Shi’ite paramilitary leader told Reuters in an interview.

Hadi al-Amiri also said Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was alive and in Iraq, despite reports that he had been wounded.

"Many of its leadership have been killed but one should know that Daesh (IS) is still strong," said Amiri, leader of the Badr Organization whose armed wing has been fighting alongside Iraqi security forces to recapture territory seized by IS.

"Their attacks are still daring and swift and their morale is high. They still have money and weapons."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/leading-iraqi-shiite-says-islamic-state-shrugging-off-161523322.html

[bemildred]

1. "It's just a flesh wound, I'll be up in a minute." nt

[nyabingi]

2. Can we please dispense with the lie

that we or any of our allies are actually trying to put an end to IS?

These mercenaries (and that's really all they are) are easy to see, in the open, and could have been seriously degraded if the US was really trying to hit them with the years of airstrikes our leaders are openly lying about. The Russians haven't had much trouble targeting these mercenaries inside Syria, so what's our excuse?

IS exists still today because we (and the Israelis, Turks, Saudis, Qataris) are so blindly determined to see regime change in Syria that we risk the very public lie (that we are really trying to stop IS) being exposed widely for the fraud it has been from the start. Iraqi and Iranian military people on the ground have stated to their media on many occasions that the US has been seen openly dropping ammo and supplies directly to IS fighters, and no one should doubt the veracity of those statements this far into the game.

Why isn't the US-based media questioning this charade at all?

[Nihil]

3. I have disagreed with you on many things but not on this.

Excellent post.

[Marengo]

4. We are supplying the IS with munitions?

[nyabingi]

5. Authorization was given to the CIA

to supply weapons to "rebels" (this is separate from the arming and training the Pentagon got into and subsequently stopped) years ago - who do you think ended up with these weapons (and the fleet of Toyota trucks)?

The CIA has never stopped their operations inside Syria and Iraq in support of ISIS and other terrorist groups. Regime change is still the policy coming from Washington and that hasn't changed.

[Cayenne]

6. How long will this duplicity go on?

Everybody but Americans themselves see the lie. I hold the corporate media in increasing contempt.

The corporate media would have us also believe that it is Assad, and not Erdogan, that is trading mass quantities of oil for arms with ISIS. Somehow that Assad is capable of moving miles long caravans of oil to market is absurd.

[nyabingi]

7. I think the corporate media is one of the prime culprits

because they've long ago abandoned their role as the people who hold the powerful accountable. They really only say what they're told, don't ask questions, and just pass on information to us that they've been given to say. The state of our media establishment is in complete, and embarrassingly so, shambles and it leaves the public (especially those who are less curious) going along with lies.

It was clearly shown by the Russians, through video and still pictures, that Turkey is stealing oil from Syria and openly supporting IS, yet our media completely ignored it. It should have been a scandal large enough to start talk of kicking Turkey out of NATO, but we've done nothing but offer them cover.

Corporate media consolidation has made the development of a permanent police/war state easier and sadly, a reality.