[AnNahar] The Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group maintains a force of thousands of fighters who pose a potent threat in the Middle East as its leaders continue to encourage attacks on the West, a top U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday.
The stark warning by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats came even as acting Pentagon chief Patrick Shanahan announced that IS was poised to lose all its remaining holdout areas in Syria "within a couple of weeks" and the risk of terrorism had been "significantly mitigated." |