Saturday, April 23, 2016

2nd Cav Element shifts position due to ISIS attacks. Is Egypt about to become the next failed state?


via Los Angeles Times.
Pentagon has shifted more than 100 U.S. soldiers from a desert camp near the Egypt-Israeli border in the Sinai Peninsula after a barrage of attacks by militants linked to Islamic State.
The U.S. troops, part of a little-known peacekeeping force that helps maintain the 1979 treaty between Egypt and Israel, were transferred about 300 miles south to a more secure area.
The move comes as the Obama administration is considering whether to scale back the 700 U.S. troops in the Sinai and instead use remote sensors, cameras and other technology to monitor the border.
Sinai Province, a militant group that last year declared allegiance to Islamic State, has carried out multiple attacks on military outposts in the northern Sinai. Its fighters have killed dozens of Egyptian soldiers, including eight this month when militants fired a rocket at their armored vehicle.
Interesting on a number of levels.  I did a photo spread on the 2nd Cav doing peacekeeping work in the Sinai and I would bet body parts that these are the boys that suffered rocket attacks.   I also would bet that they never believed they would be attacked by ISIS and that the Pentagon doesn't even have the decency to give them combat/hazardous duty pay.

The bigger issue is Egypt.  They seem totally incapable of putting down this budding insurgency.  On this point I can't really blame them.  They have to deal with the Palestinians/Hezbollah on one flank and on the other these Sinai Province/ISIS disciples on the other.

From what little news coverage we're getting I would imagine that the Egyptian army is getting hit on an almost daily basis.  How long can they hold out?  How long before ISIS senses blood and goes all in to destabilize the country?

Syria falling to ISIS would be a severe tactical/strategic problem for Europe/Saudi Arabia and Turkey.  Egypt falling would signal the start of unrestricted regional war.

Oh and the Pentagon, the Obama Admin (looking at you National Security Council) and the State Dept don't have a clue.  The Administration and Pentagon had been running with the C-team from the start.  We now have children running things that operate more on make believe than reality.

Add Egypt to the list of places that will go sideways this summer (Europe is already on that list and it will be an insane watch).  Yeah....the summertime is when we watch legacies die in the Administration, Pentagon and State Dept.

SIDE NOTE (thanks Vindice for sparking this mini rant with your spot on comment)!
This is why the Company Landing Team concept is such a FUCKING fraud!  Even against insurgents the realities of combat, our style of combat and the inability to hit back means that in the best case scenarios they'll be harassed by enemy forces and in the worst case they will found, fixed and destroyed.  We must face reality.  The USMC's CLT concept was born from the idea that we would be fighting a generational war against the type of insurgents that we saw in the 2005-2009 timeframe.  The enemy has evolved.  The predicted hybrid war is here.  FORTUNATELY the Marine Corps has a proven combat formation that has stood the test of time.  The complete combined arms team in the MEU.  We should be looking at an enhanced package instead of the bastardized Company Landing Team and its sister the SPMAGTF-CR.

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