...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
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group are having no impact, Syrian
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
The Scourge of Hama...
said in an interview to be published Thursday, as members of the U.S.-led offensive claimed to be winning the fight.
"You can't end terrorism with aerial strikes. Troops on the ground that know the land and can react are essential," he said in this week's edition of French magazine Gay Paree Match.
"That is why there haven't been any tangible results in the two months of strikes led by the coalition.
"They would of course have helped had they been serious and efficient."
the U.S.-led coalition announced that the jihadist group's advance across Iraq and Syria is finally being stopped.
"Participants noted that the global campaign against ISIL/Daesh is beginning to show results. The ISIL/Daesh advance across Syria and into Iraq is being halted," a coalition statement obtained by Agence La Belle France-Presse said, referring to the group by its alternative names.
The statement, issued after a meeting in Brussels led by U.S. Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
, said Iraqi and Kurdish forces, backed by coalition air strikes, "are now reclaiming territory in Iraq."
The coalition of around 60 mainly Western and Arab nations was formed after the first U.S. air strikes in August against IS, which has proclaimed a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.
They also agreed at the Brussels meeting to develop a "multifaceted" strategy to combat IS, including stopping the flow of imported muscle, cutting finance and "delegitimization" of its powerful, social media-driven brand.
Kerry had earlier warned that the fight against IS could take "years."
Separately, Assad said he does not think about "death or life" when asked whether he was afraid to suffer the same demise as the late Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadaffy
...Custodian of Wheelus AFB for 42 long years until he was ejected from the gene pool by his indignant citizens...
, who were both toppled after international interventions in their countries.
"I am doing my best to save the country," he said.
"But I would like to emphasize one thing. My goal has never been to remain president, neither before, during, or after the crisis."
Assad's role in any future transition to end the bloody, nearly four-year Syrian conflict is the subject of much controversy.
A year ago, Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi said that Assad would remain president and lead any form of transition, ahead of January peace talks that ended in failure.
But the opposition -- as well as countries such as Turkey and La Belle France -- insist that the Syrian leader must go no matter what happens.
Assad insisted he was "neither a personal enemy or rival of (French President Francois) Hollande."
"I think that Daesh is his rival, their popularity is very much the same," he said, in a dig at the French leader's record low popularity ratings.