February 9, 2015
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
...The figure of 200,000 ISIL fighters (click here) advanced by Fuad Hussein includes support personnel (ansar), police-style security forces (hisba), local militias, border guards, paramilitary personnel associated with the group’s various security bodies (mukhabarat, assas, amniyat, and amn al-khas), and conscripts and trainees. The actual number of ISIL front-line and garrison fighters is much lower, which are divided between their regular forces (jund), the elite paramilitary (inghimasiyun, which alone may have up to 15,000 members), and death squad (dhabbihah) personnel. Unless one is able to objectively evaluate these bodies, merely throwing out raw numbers is meaningless....
They would slither out from every rock and every crack in the wall. Absolutely not.
There would be substantial casualties all the way around, the cost would be ridiculous and the body count of innocent people could move past those dead from Vietnam.
It isn't going to happen!
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
...The figure of 200,000 ISIL fighters (click here) advanced by Fuad Hussein includes support personnel (ansar), police-style security forces (hisba), local militias, border guards, paramilitary personnel associated with the group’s various security bodies (mukhabarat, assas, amniyat, and amn al-khas), and conscripts and trainees. The actual number of ISIL front-line and garrison fighters is much lower, which are divided between their regular forces (jund), the elite paramilitary (inghimasiyun, which alone may have up to 15,000 members), and death squad (dhabbihah) personnel. Unless one is able to objectively evaluate these bodies, merely throwing out raw numbers is meaningless....
They would slither out from every rock and every crack in the wall. Absolutely not.
There would be substantial casualties all the way around, the cost would be ridiculous and the body count of innocent people could move past those dead from Vietnam.
It isn't going to happen!
