In late April, a commander for Islamic State said his forces were ready to launch an offensive to take Ramadi, and the group called for fighters to redeploy to Iraq from Syria.
Three weeks later, the jihadist group seized the capital of Anbar province after relentless waves of suicide bombings.
U.S. defense chief Ash Carter has blamed Ramadi’s fall mainly on Iraqi forces’ lack of will to fight. But Islamic State’s battlefield performance suggests the terrorist group’s tactical sophistication is growing””a development the Iraqis and the U.S.-led coalition have so far failed to counter, said Iraqi officials, former U.S. officials and military analysts studying the organization.
An examination of how Ramadi fell indicates that Islamic State commanders executed a complex battle plan that outwitted a greater force of Iraqi troops as well as the much-lauded, U.S.-trained special-operations force known as the Golden Division, which had been fighting for months to defend the city.
There have been two times when we could have destroyed ISIS. The first was last fall when they were in battle formation getting ready to attack the Kurds. I was watching it on LIVE TV so I assume I’m not teh only person who knew about it. A carrier task force could have wiped them out but our President chose to do nothing. The second time was last week. ISIS attacked Ramidi during a sand/dust storm. But later that afternoon, when it was crystal clear, there were vehicles with troops lined up for at least a mile. A one armed blind man on a bicycle could have taken them out with a fly swatter. But our President did nothing. Is there a common thread here?