The Syrian Air Force killed 18 ISIS jihadists, including one American, in a bombing raid in the eastern part of the country on Thursday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The report cannot be verified because of Syrian President Bassar al-Assad’ official ban on foreign journalists. The Observatory has been a prime source for news of the civil war and often, but nor always, is accurate.
Ina separate report, Turkey said its security forces have arrested 19 people affiliated with the Islamic State, or ISIS, near the border with Syria.
The reported bombing raid targeted a building that ISIS used as its headquarters. Another bombing raid near Iraq also killed ISIS members, Reuters reported.
ISIS controls at least one province in northern Syria and has seized large parts of another province with rich oil reserves. It has perfected the strategy of Hezbollah and Hamas and provides basic needs of life, including water and electricity, for local residents.
“Let us be honest, they are doing massive institutional work. It is impressive,” one activist who fled from the areas told Reuters.
The news agency noted that even if President Barack Obama sends the U.S. Air Force to bomb ISIS terrorists, the Islamic State is too entrenched in daily to be eliminated.
That may help explain why Israel did try to eliminate Hamas in Gaza, just as it could not destroy Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in the war in the summer of 2006.
Once terrorists are allowed to replace a government and has a base of social power, it is too late to use conventional force to destroy it.
Israel has been able to contain Hamas, but the European countries’ permissive immigration policies have left their leaders powerless to stop the racial Islamic movement’s takeover of daily life.