{"id":53629,"date":"2016-03-08T19:04:51","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T19:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/bbc_isis_an_invincible_force\/"},"modified":"2016-03-08T19:04:51","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T19:04:51","slug":"bbc_isis_an_invincible_force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=53629","title":{"rendered":"(BBC) ISIS: An invincible force?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The coalition has managed to push IS out of the Iraqi cities of Tikrit and Ramadi, as well as an ever-increasing stretch of Syrian-Turkish borderland.<br \/>\nEnemies of the &#8220;caliphate&#8221;, backed by (mostly) US fighter jets, are now bivouacked 50km (30 miles) from the IS &#8220;capital&#8221; of Raqqa, in northern Syria.<br \/>\nYet IS&#8217; hold on its most valuable strategic terrain, the areas seized either in or before 2014, is still uncontested.<br \/>\nIt is entrenched in Mosul and Raqqa and the Sunni Arab tribal heartland of the Euphrates river valley, which stretches from eastern Syria to western Iraq.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-middle-east-35694297\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The coalition has managed to push IS out of the Iraqi cities of Tikrit and Ramadi, as well as an ever-increasing stretch of Syrian-Turkish borderland. Enemies of the &#8220;caliphate&#8221;, backed by (mostly) US fighter jets, are now bivouacked 50km (30<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=53629\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,40,50,119,203,148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-economics-politics","category-international-news-commentary","category-globalization","category-middle-east","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}