Pentagon spokesman on fighting ISIS: 'I think we are in t
Pentagon |
September 25, 2014 -- Updated
"I think we are in this
for a matter of years," the Pentagon spokesman, Navy Rear Adm. John
Kirby, told CNN Thursday. "... We are steeling ourselves for that period
of time."
U.S.-led airstrikes hit
locations overnight in a remote area of eastern Syria where ISIS has
been using mobile refineries to produce oil that brings in up to $2
million a day for the group.
The U.S. military was
still assessing the damage to the refineries by the airstrikes, Kirby
said. The attacks are focused on the "infrastructure around the
refineries," meaning the ability of ISIS to produce oil, he said.
Even so, there are
questions about just how much impact the destruction of the refineries
will have on ISIS, which analysts have said has access to billions of
dollars.
"Even if we stop their
oil flow today, they still have about a billion dollars in the bank,"
retired U.S. Army Col. Peter Mansoor said.
"They seized about a
third of a billion dollars from the central bank of Mosul (Iraq)." On
top of that, he added, ISIS has garnered millions of dollars in ransoms
from European governments for hostages and have traded much of their
oil.
For now, the United
States is focused on the refineries, according to Kirby. But he
acknowledged there are "other economic levers the international
community is going to have to pull" to cut off all funding to ISIS.
At least 14 militants and
five civilians were killed in the overnight airstrikes, according to
the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a dissident monitoring group.
ISIS targets in Iraq
were also hit Thursday morning by France's military, government
spokesman Stephane Le Foll told reporters in Paris.
Human rights lawyer executed
The news came as reports
surfaced that ISIS fighters carried out a public execution of a
well-known human rights lawyer, who took to Facebook to criticize the
group's destruction of mosques, churches and shrines in Iraq.
Calling the torture and
killing of Sameera Al-Nuiamy savage and cowardly, U.N. special
representative for Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, said the Iraqi government
and the international community must do all they can to ensure those
responsible for her death are brought to justice.
Al-Nuiamy was reportedly
abducted from her home in Mosul on September 17 and put on trial before
a Sharia court, which Mladenov says found her guilty of apostasy.
"She was then held for a
further five days during which she was subjected to torture in an
attempt to force her to repent before she was executed in public," he
said.
ISIS overruns Iraqi base
The reports about the
execution came as new details emerged about the killing of up to 300
Iraqi soldiers in Iraq's western Anbar province after ISIS fighters
overran the base near Falluja this week.
A handful of survivors
who escaped from Saqlawiyah, which had been under siege for a week,
accused the Iraqi government of failing to respond to pleas for help in
the days leading up to Monday's final ISIS assault on the base.
One soldier recounted in
a video posted to YouTube how he and his comrades battled the fighters
for hours before starting to run out of ammunition and then being shot
by a sniper.
"I called the commander ... for support, but no one responded," he said.
While CNN cannot confirm
the authenticity of the claims in the video, Iraqi Prime Minister
Haider al-Abadi has ordered an investigation into what happened and why
the soldiers were left to fend for themselves.
At least 113 soldiers were killed and another 78 are missing, according to Iraqi security officials.
The report has raised
questions about whether the Iraqi military can defeat ISIS on the ground
even with help from the United States and its allies in the air.
There are similar
questions being asked about Syria's moderate rebel groups, which have
been battling President Bashar al-Assad's forces and ISIS.
Activist: Airstrikes won't eliminate ISIS
U.S. strikes the Khorasan group in Syria
Map: Airstrikes in Syria
ISIS leadership dispersed?
ISIS has likely
dispersed much of its command-and-control capabilities in Syria, and
leaders are now "mixed in with the civilian population," Mansoor said.
"So it's unlikely these
airstrikes have crippled ISIS," he said. "As the President has said,
it's going to be a long campaign, and it will be months -- perhaps years
-- before ISIS is dealt a serious blow absent any sort of ground force
to go in and root them out on the ground."
In the latest round of
strikes targeting ISIS refineries in Syria, fighter jets from Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates flew alongside U.S. aircraft,
hitting 12 locations, Kirby said.
While ISIS has been the focus of most of the strikes in Syria, other terror targets have been hit.
The U.S. military said the al Qaeda-linked Khorasan Group also was targeted when the strikes in Syria began Tuesday morning.
And the terror group
al-Nusra Front says its leader, Abu Yousef al-Turki -- also known as
"The Turk" -- was killed. But the United States has not said whether
al-Turki is dead.
"We cannot confirm any particular leadership that might have been killed in any of these strikes," Kirby said Wednesday.
And as far as how many ISIS militants have been killed, "we don't know that, either," Kirby said.
International support
While the support for
the U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria has been tepid, the support for the the
international coalition against ISIS in Iraq is growing.
The Dutch foreign
ministry announced Wednesday that its military will contribute six F-16
fighter jets and 250 troops to carry out airstrikes and train Iraqi and
Kurdish forces. Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said his
country's parliament will weigh a request for six of its fighter jets to
take part in the bombing campaign.
Similarly, British Prime
Minister David Cameron said he's recalling Parliament Friday "to secure
approval for the United Kingdom to participate in the Iraq air
campaign.
"The U.N. Security
Council has now received a clear request from the Iraqi government to
support it in its military action against ISIL," Cameron said from U.N.
headquarters in New York. "... So it is right that Britain should move
to a new phase of action."
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