WASHINGTON (AP) — Foreign fighters are streaming into Syria and Iraq in unprecedented numbers to join the Islamic State or other extremist groups, including at least 3,400 from Western nations among 20,000 from around the world, U.S. intelligence officials say in an updated estimate of a top terrorism concern.Read the entire story but focus on the numbers. Depending on the source I've heard it estimated that ISIS numbers between 30K and 60K fighters. TOTAL!
Intelligence agencies now believe that as many as 150 Americans have tried and some have succeeded in reaching in the Syrian war zone, officials told the House Homeland Security Committee in testimony prepared for delivery on Wednesday. Some of those Americans were arrested en route, some died in the area and a small number are still fighting with extremists.
The testimony and other data were obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
Nick Rasmussen, chief of the National Counterterrorism Center, said the rate of foreign fighter travel to Syria is without precedent, far exceeding the rate of foreigners who went to wage jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia at any other point in the past 20 years.
U.S. officials fear that some of the foreign fighters will return undetected to their homes in Europe or the U.S. to mount terrorist attacks. At least one of the men responsible for the attack on a satirical magazine in Paris had spent time with Islamic extremists in Yemen.
Meanwhile, the White House circulated a proposal Tuesday that would have Congress authorize the U.S. military to fight Islamic State terrorists over the next three years. A formal request for legislation is expected on Wednesday.
Think about that for a minute. The US and its allies have organized a coalition of the most modern forces on this planet to fight at most two or three reinforced divisions worth of troops....poorly trained troops (for the most part) at that. The biggest part of ISIS (from my arm chair) is made up of highly motivated criminals.
Yet the US Central Command, NATO, and our Middle Eastern allies are all being fought to a basic standstill by these animals?
Something is very wrong with the way that we wage war. This would be a simple tactical problem to a WW2 General and his staff. Why is it so hard for us today?
