Tim Drayton wrote:Paphitis wrote:Tim Drayton wrote:The following only increases my doubts about the effectiveness of the anti-DAESH alliance’s efforts so far:Iraqi officials have made an urgent appeal for military help in the western Anbar province, saying the area could fall to Islamic State (IS) militants.
The jihadist group has been attacking the provincial capital Ramadi, and has seized army bases in the area.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29581193
The biggest problem is the fact that Ground Troops are not being deployed aside from a few Special Forces ( about 1000 in total ).
We are relying on the Iraqi Security Forces and Peshmerga. The ISF needs to be supied with heavy weapons but not just that, their units need to be trained pretty much from scratch. Unfortunately, the ISF was in total disarray with soldiers deserting their posts even by the hundreds allowing DAESH to gain the upper hand.
It's going to take time to build the ISF into something that will resemble a capable fighting unit. The Peshmerga however are different. You heard from the YPG commander that there is no surrender and that the enemy will have to walk over their corpses.
Things will happen, it's just a matter of time. I should suspect that it will be much easier in Iraq than in Syria.
The coalition has only been active for 2 months and DAESH have adapted to this so the airstrikes are having an impact and they are degrading their capability.
Agreed, the Iraqi military are hopeless.
No no, not hopeless.
They just need some guidance, training and more weapons.
Their morale is almost broken, but it can be fixed.
It's just not something that will happen overnight.
