News / Foreign Policy

GOP lawmaker: US war on Daesh has ‘minimal impact’

Sunday, 27 December 2015 5:37 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 27 December 2015 5:37 PM ]

US Rep. Peter King speaks at the First in the Nation Republican Leadership Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire, April 17, 2015. (AFP photo)

The United States military campaign against Daesh (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq has had “minimal effects,” sixteen months into its launch, says a key member of Congress.

Republican Representative Peter King, chairman of the House subcommittee on counter-terrorism and intelligence, criticized President Barack Obama’s military solution to confront the terror group, arguing that those efforts have only resulted in a stronger Daesh.

“After 15, 16 months of air attacks by the US, it has had really minimal impact on ISIS (Daesh), considering how long those attacks have been going on,” King, told Fox New on Sunday, referring to the group by an alternative acronym. “ISIS is stronger, I believe, than it was 16 months ago.”

The New York politician’s comments echoed those of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General Joseph Dunford who admitted earlier in December that the US has “not contained” the group.

This is while back in November, Obama claimed that the US military had “contained” the extremist group, a bold statement that was proven false only a day later, on November 13, when a series of Daesh claimed attacks in the French capital, Paris, killed more than 130 people.

US warplanes have purportedly been conducting airstrikes against Daesh terrorists in Iraq since the early August of 2014. Some US allies have also contributed to a similar aerial campaign in Syria that began in September that year.

Since the onset of the deadly conflict in Syria in 2011, the US and its allies have also been providing military and financial aid to militants fighting the Syrian government.

The Pentagon has on several occasions airdropped weapons for what it calls “moderate” militants who are fighting President Bashar al-Assad. Some of the weapons, however, have ended up in the hands of foreign-backed Daesh terrorists.

According to Amnesty International, today the terror organization is in possession of a substantial arsenal of US-made weapons and equipment they have captured from the Iraqi military.

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