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2014 American rescue mission in Syria
I. Lead Section
a. There are some grammatical errors in this lead section. I also found that this was a secret mission to attempt to rescue several Americans being held captive, but they were unable to find them.
The 2014 American rescue mission in Syria was carried out in order to rescue two dozen fighters, two of which were journalists, who were being held by the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant. This was a secret mission carried out at night in an attempt to rescue those who were being held captive, but they were unable to find the victims. Though no soldiers were lost in this mission, it was not successful because the hostages could not be located.
II. About ISIS
a. These horrendous acts by extreme Islamic terrorists have been commonly described as "medieval savagery" due to the common associations of ISIS with, "mass executions; the beheadings of civilians, including journalists and aid workers; and the destruction of precious historical sites and artifacts spread across the Fertile Crescent. While broadcast on daily news outlets, these images come to mind, in part, because they have been distributed across all forms of social media and the Internet - in combination with stories of adventure and religious salvation - in an attempt to recruit fighters to join ISIS's efforts in the Middle East." (Kopitzke) An estimate by Member States projected that roughly thirty - eight thousand people may have tried to travel to Iraq and Syria in order to join forces with ISIS.
III. Operation
a. Initial factors– This operation was brought about by the beheading of an American hostage by the Islamic State. I found that taking hostages was done in a response to the U.S. airstrikes in Iraq.
During this raid two dozen Delta Force commandos were helicoptered to the location and entered an oil refinery where no hostages were discovered. We know that at least one American aircraft was brought under fire in the process of this mission. While this unfortunate confrontation ensued, all present soldiers were evacuated safely.
b. Additional information – The author did not mention that this was the first time our military has been reportedly on the ground in Syria since their civil war three years prior.
Following the attacks on 9/11 the United States Special Operations Forces went through a major expansion in order to counteract terrorism and lead the fight against the new enemy. Our perspective of the Islamic State is not accurately portrayed by the Western mainstream media. Interestingly enough this mission was conducted on July 4th. This day is one that America celebrates it's independence and is now shared with the Al Baghdadi's first homily as a "State of Islam address". It was stated by Frederick Norris that, "When we deal with religious phenomena, we are not always fortunate enough to find explanatory texts. This is particularly true of the mystery religions and thus should be expected when we look at the materials concerning Isis, Sarapis and Demeter at Antioch of Syria. But in this instance we are faced with special problems. First, the texts are so meager that we are forced to turn to the artifacts in order to grasp at all the influence of these religions within the third largest city of the ancient world. Second, and more important, the effort to collate all the artifacts is at present impossible."
IV. Aftermath
a. Official comments – This was considered to be a “flawless operation” by the Defense Secretary at the time even though they failed to save the hostages. He also neglected to admit that this was a failure of intelligence.
A Defense Department official commented on the failure of this mission that, "We're not sure why they were moved... By the time we got there, it was too late... a matter of hours, perhaps a day or two." since the American hostages were moved from their initial location. Defense officials were openly frustrated with the transparency of the administration regarding information of this mission. The National Security Council spokeswoman expressed that they had, "Never intended to disclose this operation". Spokeswoman Hayden did share that the National Security Council felt very pressured by the news media outlets to offer this information so that they could report on the American Syria rescue mission. One of the main concerns with ISIS is that of "homegrown terrorists". This issue is extremely concerning and was taken into consideration when President Obama reiterated to Member States at the Security Council that, "foreign fighters were likely to return to their home countries to carry out attacks." Research found that these extremists are returning to their homeland twenty to thirty percent of the time.
b. Results – The mission did not execute the rescue of the hostages, however, it found “unspecified materials” because of the operation.
c. Resolution
The United Nations Security Council proposed a resolution to combat the radicalization of Islamists. This resolution 2178 calls upon all "Member States" to quickly address this issue and was specifically geared towards foreign terrorists. We know that in todays time we are becoming increasingly threatened by this specific Islamic extremest group. ISIS is attracting people from all walks of life around the world to the Middle East. These groups are becoming more and more advanced as their popularity continues to increase. An effort to combat ISIS sometimes referred to as "watershed in the global civilian effort to reduce the threat from foreign terrorist fighters... in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere." This effort was put in place and adopted by other countries to implement laws intended to criminalize attempted travel or travel of individuals for the purposes of terrorism. There is concern with this resolution involving terrorists taking advantage of refugee statuses, which makes it difficult to the Security Council and Member States to end this problem without disrespecting basic human rights and other international legal obligations. Though it has been estimated that these efforts have reduced ISIS's fighting forces to roughly twelve thousand, the threat of terrorism remains high. The largest threat holds steady on Western governments.
V. References
a. https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?chart=overtime&search=ISIS
Szoldra, Paul 2014 ‘The Operation To Rescue American Hostages In Syria Was Much Larger Than We Realized’. Business Insider
e. http://www.jstor.org.argo.library.okstate.edu/stable/pdf/10.2979/indjglolegstu.24.1.0309.pdf
As a service member these articles intrigue me very much because they are written without information that would require a security clearance, which would be the most important pieces of information. This article seems to do a good job giving a general idea of the scenario, with a task and purpose outlined and a brief discussion of the actions on the objective. I would be most interested to know what the large scale aftermath would have been. Since this operation was conducted in Syria, and the U.S has had such a long standing and still current conflict with Syria, even though the mission was carried out against ISIL forces it would be interesting to see if there was any fallout with the U.S-Syrian relations. Additionally, I would be interested to learn what happened to the remaining hostages that were not executed. The article identifies two hostages that were executed by the hostage takers, and one that was used in an unknown form of propaganda manipulation; but what of the other hostages that were moved? Lastly, since the country of Jordan was assumed to have been involved, I feel this could be an area that could be delved into much deeper. It is stated that it is unknown if Jordan was involved and if so to what extent, but the implications of Jordan being involved with American operations in Syria could be monumental. If Jordan was involved with this operation on the ground, provided troops, and authorized joint military intervention then that information would be crucial to a full and comprehensive understanding of this operation. - Mattsson