ISIS Fighter: U.S. Airstrikes in Syria Aren’t Stopping Us

Last week the U.S. began
conducting airstrikes in Syria as part of its war against the
Islamic State (a.k.a. ISIS or ISIL). The Obama administration is
deliberately hitting oil fields under ISIS control in order to hit
them in the moneymaker. American military leaders were quick to
say, “The
strikes were successful.”

An ISIS fighter under the pseudonym Abu Talha
tells CNN that’s a lot of hot air:

We’ve been ready for this for some time. … We know that our
bases are known because they’re tracking us with radars and
satellites, so we had backup locations. …

We have revenues other than oil. We have other avenues, and our
finances are not going to stop just because of oil losses. …

They thought they knew everything. But thank God, they don’t
know anything. And God willing, we will defeat the infidels.

They hit us in some areas, and we advance in other. … If we are
pushed back in Iraq, we advance in northern Syria. These strikes
cannot stop us, our support or our fighters

Can we take his word for it? If not, the former head of the
U.K.’s military
also says that airstrikes aren’t going to work.

President Barack Obama acknowledged yesterday that his
administration has “underestimated”
the Islamic State.

America’s bombing campaign could cost as much as
$10 billion a year, according to Foreign Affairs.

Several foreign policy voices have
said American airstrikes run the serious risk of
bringing together ISIS with other anti-American jihadists while
angering moderate rebels that have previously been pro-U.S.

Reuters
reports today that “U.S.-led air strikes hit grain silos and
other targets in Islamic State-controlled territory in northern and
eastern Syria overnight, killing civilians and wounding
militants.”

As Reason‘s Peter Suderman highlights, despite Obama’s
insistence that he won’t get America tangled up in a ground war,
the
vast majority of Americans believe the fight against ISIS will
expand beyond airstrikes to include ground troops.