Can IS be defeated period?

10-15 hits a day from the air is just like stirring up a mound of fire ants; they just go elsewhere. Continuous concentrated strikes will either sap them of much of their will or kill them.
That and having a competent force to stand against them. Look at Boko Haram, they appeared unstoppable. But then they ran into the forces of Chad and were slaughtered on the battlefield. Chad has a competent military and it showed.

In this provocative history, Mike Davis traces the car bomb’s worldwide use and development, in the process exposing the role of state intelligence agencies—particularly those of the United States, Israel, India, and Pakistan—in globalizing urban terrorist techniques. Davis argues that it is the incessant impact of car bombs, rather than the more apocalyptic threats of nuclear or bio-terrorism, that is changing cities and urban lifestyles, as privileged centers of power increasingly surround themselves with ‘rings of steel’ against a weapon that nevertheless seems impossible to defeat.

http://www.amazon.com/Budas-Wagon-Brief-History-Bomb/dp/1844672948

At least 42 members of Iraq's security forces have been killed in a suicide bombing on an army base north of Fallujah, Al Jazeera has learned.

The attack was carried out with an explosives-laden armoured Humvee vehicle, which exploded near a weapons depot at the base, military sources told Al Jazeera.

Witnesses said ammunition stored in the depot continued to explode several hours after the initial attack, which occurred at 3am local time on Monday.

Local officials said the death toll of the attack was likely to rise.

The attack came a day after Haider al-Abbadi, Iraq's prime minister, acknowledged the loss of about 2,300 Humvee armoured vehicles when the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group overran the northern city of Mosul last year.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/iraqi-soldiers-die-attack-army-base-150601095034343.html

Iraqi security forces lost 2,300 Humvee armoured vehicles to the Islamic State in Mosul last summer, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi revealed.

"In the collapse of Mosul, we lost a lot of weapons. We lost 2,300 Humvees in Mosul alone," Al-Abadi said, pointing out that "several Russian and American maintenance companies and contractors left the country because of the deteriorating security situation in Iraq."

Last year, the US State Department approved the sale of 1,000 Humvees with increased armour, machine guns, grenade launchers, other gear and support, estimated to cost $579 million.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/18967-isis-captured-2300-armoured-vehicles-from-iraqi-army

Apparently Humvees make good car-bombs.

A Humvee is a great hulking vehicle with little in the way of creature comforts. Designed to face some of the toughest conditions on the planet, if you spend time in one it quickly lives up to its reputation.

The name comes from its military acronym "High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle," which some wag in US military circles shortened to Humvee. The vehicle is ubiquitous with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where the US deployed it as its vehicle of choice, but now it has a role the US never envisaged; a weapon used by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levent (ISIL) group.

Iraqi Prime minister Haider al-Abbadi said some 2300 Humvees have been stolen by ISIL from Mosul after it to ISIL a year ago. For a while the group celebrated the capture by parading them in their propaganda videos.

But Humvees need a lot of maintenance, a lot of fuel and require special parts from the US. For ISIL, the Toyota Land Cruiser was far easier to maintain and more effective. So they came up with a new way of using the vehicle.

http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/middleeast/2015/06/anatomy-iraqi-car-bomb-150602125736732.html

BEIRUT: ISIS seized territory from both Syrian government forces and rival rebels over the weekend further expanding the caliphate it has proclaimed straddling Iraq and Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that following gains in both Homs province in the center and Aleppo province in the north, ISIS now controlled half of the country's land area.

Geographer and analyst Fabrice Balanche said that across Iraq and Syria, the jihadi group now controlled nearly 300,000 square kilometers (115,000 square miles), an area the size of Italy.

In Aleppo province - on Syria's border with Turkey - ISIS has expanded its control at the expense of rival rebel groups.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Jun-01/300090-isis-advances-in-syria-against-both-regime-and-rival-rebels.ashx

There were posts not long ago about how ISIS wasn't really much of anything. It seems as though that has changed.

Any movement that has an apparently infinite supply of suicide bombers we probably ought to try to understand better. Well, in my view anyway, I know some people think that shows weakness and lack of commitment.

I have been taken with the element of ideological fanaticism that lies behind ISIL since Mosul was taken, like a children's crusade, but there are other things about it that are strange too.

And most of all militarily there is much to be explained in ISIL's successes, like where it gets its money and guns from, and is it the work of some mind or minds or just an emergent revolution with nobody much at the controls? A bunch of looters and rapers run amok in a world that is ripe with opportunity where the authorities can't do much about them?

Wealthy Gulf state renegades?

Russia, China, the GCC, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, everybody knows how to just touch the line but not go over it.

Do you see how it's going to go, he is going to outline a plan to begin taking back Ramadi? I just saw another with exactly the same idea about Mosul too. They don't have the foggiest idea what to do. The question from the time Mosul fell and ISIL got set up in Raqqa has been who is going to re-occupy Anbar to stop this? I don't see anybody. And nobody seems able to fence them in either. So I think we are going to be watching this for a long time to come.

Washington: Iraq's plan to recapture the western city of Ramadi from Islamic State jihadists will dominate a meeting Tuesday in Paris of foreign ministers from the international coalition fighting the group, a senior US official said.

In the wake of the stunning defeat in Ramadi this month, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi will outline how his government intends to retake it and what coalition partners can do to help, a senior State Department official told reporters.

"This is not a business-as-usual meeting," said the senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity by teleconference.

http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/iraqi-pm-haider-al-abadi-to-outline-plan-for-retaking-ramadi-us-official-767873

Isn't this what countries have armies for?

Some people say that the main purpose of the Iraqi army was to provide a fig-leaf so we could leave.

Just to rub it in.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Abadi complained on Tuesday of a lack of support from international coalition allies in the fight against Islamic State insurgents.

Speaking at a conference in Paris, Abadi said coalition partners were not providing Iraqi forces with sufficient air intelligence to stem Islamic State advances, while support for ground operations was also lacking.

"Air support is not enough. There is too little surveillance. Daech (Islamic State) is mobile and move in very small groups. It’s not enough," Abadi told reporters at the talks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/02/us-mideast-crisis-abadi-idUSKBN0OI0O820150602

That sucks they used some of the stuff we gave the iragis to kill other Iraqis, what can we do? I think we should just leave and try and keep the communication lines open with the Wabis in Saidi Arabia and the Shiiites of Iran. I still think the IS is just the violent side of the Wabis trying to get back at Iran but I just read the news I have never been over there. Hope I am totally wrong and it doesn't keep getting worse in the middle east and people get along.

The whole situation is a mess.

In order to undermine the Syrian regime, to undermine shia Arab power in the region.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/06/isis-syria-assad-iraq-benghazi/

http://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/