National Defense Briefs – June 18

By W. Thomas Smith Jr.

National Defense Briefs is a series aimed at informing readers with timely military and homeland security news updates, trends, definitions, and short commentaries. Defense issues are inextricably connected to business. In that, MidlandsBiz.com presents the “National Defense Briefs” that matter.

• Pakistani infantry – including supporting artillery and helicopter gunships – have been deployed to North Waziristan (a mountainous region on the Pakistani–Afghan border) this week as part of “a long-expected military operation” aimed at locating and destroying insurgent forces following the June 10 attack on Jinnah International Airport. “The Taliban and ethnic Uzbek fighters holed up in North Waziristan – home to some of Pakistan’s most feared militants and al Qaeda commanders – have both claimed responsibility for last Sunday’s commando-style attack,” reports Reuters. Located in Karachi, Jinnah International is Pakistan’s largest airport.
• The AP is reporting, “Iraq’s military has been deeply shaken by their collapse in the face of fighters led by the al-Qaida breakaway group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, who in the course of just over a week overran Mosul then stormed toward Baghdad, seizing town after town, several cities and army base after army base over a large swath of territory. The impact is hurting efforts to rally the armed forces to fight back. Shiite militiamen and volunteers have had to fill the void as the regular army struggles to regroup.”
• According to the AP story, an Iraqi “lieutenant-colonel who escaped the militants’ sweep over the northern city of Mosul [said], ‘I am as broken and ashamed as a bride who is not a virgin on her wedding night.’” Speaking on condition of anonymity, he added, “I have been fighting in Mosul for five years, we never ran away. Some of us were killed and injured, but we never ran away. Now, people tell me we are cowards, can you imagine? I cannot sleep. Death is more merciful.” Though melodramatic, the Shia field-grade officer’s words reflect the disintegrating morale of the Iraqi army.

• As of this writing [Jun 18, 900 EDT] CNN is reporting, “Iraq’s military claimed Wednesday to have driven back militants who stormed the country’s main oil refinery in the town of Baiji, the latest front in the battle for control of swaths of Iraq. Iraqi forces killed 40 militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, said Iraqi military spokesman Gen. Qasem Atta, in a televised news conference. Baiji is 225 kilometers (140 miles) north of Baghdad, the capital.”

• In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, former U.S. Vice Pres. Dick Cheney writes, “The fall of the Iraqi cities of Fallujah, Tikrit, Mosul and Tel Afar, and the establishment of terrorist safe havens across a large swath of the Arab world, present a strategic threat to the security of the United States.” He adds, “The tragedy unfolding in Iraq today is only part of the story. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are resurgent across the globe. According to a recent Rand study, between 2010 and 2013, there was a 58 percent increase in the number of Salafi-jihadist terror groups around the world. During that same period, the number of terrorists doubled.” [Read story here]
• Live Iraq updates from the (UK) Telegraph here.
• Asked if the Crusades – the Christian-led military campaigns in the Middle East from 1095 through the mid-15^th century – were justifiable, Dr. Clay Jones, associate professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University, responds, “When I hear Westerners unequivocally condemn the crusades, I immediately ask, ‘But aren’t you glad that Spain, southern Italy, and, for that matter, all of Europe aren’t today under Muslim control?’ Make no mistake: that was the alternative.” [Read story here]

– W. Thomas Smith Jr. is a military analyst and partner with NATIONAL DEFENSE CONSULTANTS, LLC. Visit him at http://uswriter.com