via The Daily Beast.
I was wrong.
We're talking about Balad.
Freaking Balad!
The President and US State Dept has not been telling the truth about this situation. The Iraqi Armed Forces have for all intents and purposes been defeated on the battlefield.
An already unstable Middle East is now going to spiral hopelessly out of control.
Oil prices are going to zoom once the idiots in the stock market put two and two together. Six dollar a gallon gas will soon seem like a bargain.
Worse?
Jordan, Lebanon are definitely in trouble. Saudi Arabia is probably in a hurt locker too. I don't see how a regional war can now be avoided. The ISIS savages will not stop. Fanatics don't have off switches. The only question is whether or not it turns into a world war.
In its march to Baghdad, ISIS seized the heavy weapons of a modern army. Now, the jihadists are attacking Iraq’s biggest air base – and could soon be able to attack from the sky.I thought I had been keeping up with events in Iraq.
The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham is threatening to take control of Balad Airbase, Iraq’s largest airfield and one of America’s most important military outposts during its occupation of the country.
Today, Balad still has plenty of vehicles and aircraft on the base that any terrorist group would covet, including Russian-made transport helicopters, surveillance planes, and a fleet of pickup trucks fitted with heavy machine guns.
Now, that airbase is coming under fire—and is in danger of falling into the hands of ISIS, according to U.S. intelligence officers, internal reports from Balad, and outside analysts. Reuters reported Wednesday that the base was now surroundedon three sides by insurgents and taking heavy mortar fire.
“We assess the group continues to threaten the air base and Iraqi Security Force control of the air base as it moves south towards Baghdad,” a senior U.S. intelligence official told reporters Tuesday.
Of course, even if ISIS were to gain control of Balad, there is no guarantee its fighters would know how to operate or maintain the aircraft that are stored there. But an ISIS takeover of Balad would be significant nonetheless. As NBC News reported Tuesday, Iraqi officers say without air support they are on an equal footing with ISIS fighters.
Jessica Lewis—the research director for the Institute for the Study of War and a former U.S. Army intelligence officer who served in Iraq—told The Daily Beast, “It would mean that ISIS can beat the best that the Iraqi Army can muster, not just the northern units that have been ignored. It would mean strategic defeat for the Iraqi Army.”
I was wrong.
We're talking about Balad.
Freaking Balad!
The President and US State Dept has not been telling the truth about this situation. The Iraqi Armed Forces have for all intents and purposes been defeated on the battlefield.
An already unstable Middle East is now going to spiral hopelessly out of control.
Oil prices are going to zoom once the idiots in the stock market put two and two together. Six dollar a gallon gas will soon seem like a bargain.
Worse?
Jordan, Lebanon are definitely in trouble. Saudi Arabia is probably in a hurt locker too. I don't see how a regional war can now be avoided. The ISIS savages will not stop. Fanatics don't have off switches. The only question is whether or not it turns into a world war.
