Who Defeated Islamic State ?

[Gromit]

IS is defeated and the Califate finished. I am sure everyone is pleased by that news. But who actually defeated them?

All the headlines report the victors as ‘US Backed Rebels”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-47678157

Which rather conveniently diguises the fact that they were defeated by The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), mostly Kurdish fighters. The deception is necessary because Turkey our NATO chum regards them as terrorists, and the US and UK have proscibed the Kurdish PKK as a terrorist group.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/world/middleeast/turkey-kurds-syria.html

The Kurdish fighters have done us all a great service by defeating ISIS on the ground. Should we at least give them proper credit rather than hiding their identity ?

[jno]

it's probably about time they were given a proper Kurdistan. (Though I'm fully aware of the consequences of giving Zionists the land that God hadtold them they could have a few millennia earlier).

[Ken4155]

I thought The Donald had defeated them. Single-handedly of course.

[mushroom25]

//IS is defeated //

just wondering what the basis was of whoever thought they were doing the defeating in making such a statement. it wasn't a war in the conventional sense, with declarations, etc. nor - so far as I know - have IS made any sort of surrender announcement. all that's happened is that the fighters have melted away into the general civilian population. are the defeated? I remain to be convinced.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// The Kurdish fighters have done us all a great service by defeating ISIS on the ground. ///

Yes but who will defeat them 'UNDERGROUND'?

[naomi24]

//are they defeated? I remain to be convinced. //

They'll be back.

[Old_Geezer]

Just as long as they were defeated. Don't overly care who did so.

Diplomatic announcements serve a purpose too. Need to get from where we are to where we wish to be.

[jno]

Isis aren't al Qaeda. Al Qaeda are guerrilla fighters but Isis have been trying to set up a caliphate, and for that they need land, a home base. Lose that and they lose their reason for existence. They can try to set it up again, but it's hard to see them being in any condition to do so a second time.

[Old_Geezer]

Defeated in the sense that the few left are now pushed underground as terrorists, and not some caliphate creating riff raff army abusing all in the society.

[naomi24]

jno, They will never lose their reason for existence.

This is worth reading.

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/a-defeat-for-islamic-state-but-it-leaves-a-legacy-of-decades-of-fear-a4097546.html

[Zacs-Master]

If the powers that be wanted us to know, we'd know.

Their 'defeat' kinda proves what i always used to say on the subject when people would clamour for 'something to be done', i.e. 'something is being done'.

[Gromit]

Will The Donald support the Kurdish fighters now, or dispense with them now that they have serve a purpose ?
It would be ironic if they were courted by Assad, and they kept him in power.

[jno]

that's not Isis, that's just terror.

"the self-declared caliphate that once stretched from the outskirts of Baghdad to the Mediterranean — an area the size of Great Britain — is no more.

The significance of this is very great. What made IS terrorism so menacing was the fact that it was backed by the resources of a well-organised de facto state that, at its peak, ruled eight million people. It had armies totalling tens of thousands of experienced soldiers and could arm, train and finance IS cells almost anywhere in the world."

Pretty much what I said. Caliphates require a state.

[naomi24]

//"the self-declared caliphate that once stretched from the outskirts of Baghdad to the Mediterranean — an area the size of Great Britain — is no more. //

at the moment ....

[jno]

Isis it was only set up in the first place because the armies that invaded Iraq disbanded the Republican Guard, leaving a lot of highly trained soldiers with time on their hands, and took their eyes off the ball. I don't see these circumstances being repeated.

[naomi24]

Let's hope you're right, jno, but I have my doubts.

[agchristie]

Wasn't it a 'coalition of allies'! ;-)

[ToraToraTora]

You did gromit, the keyboard is mightier that the sword!

[david small]

Like the Taliban were defeated, except they aren’t. Cut off one head, more will grow.

[ToraToraTora]

we sent them British school girls, that was the beginning of the end.

[Spicerack]

The Syrian Army.