The map in the article shows that ISIL holds an "Islamic State" across large chunks of Syria and Iraq, of course.
And they have franchise operations in Algeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan-Pakistan, Libya, Egypt, and Nigeria.
Which reminds me of an early complaint about our initial Afghanistan campaign that smashed the al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan. The complaint by our left was that by smashing the sanctuary, we scattered al Qaeda to other places on the planet, thus "contaminating" regions that would have been untouched if we'd just left al Qaeda safely in place, "contained" in the mountains.
Never mind that from that "contained" sanctuary they sent forth terrorists to kill nearly 3,000 of us on 9/11.
And here we are today with ISIL using their sanctuary--their state, in fact--to contaminate many other regions with the ISIL brand of terrorism.
Maybe if we're lucky, taking our sweet time about destroying ISIL won't bite us in the ass:
The ISIS is behind a spate of mustard gas attacks in Syria and may have enough of the killer substance to slaughter tens of thousands, The Daily Mirror reported.
The network may have access to 20 tonnes of the evil weapon and could smuggle it out of Syria and into Europe, a leading expert in chemical warfare has warned.
So don't worry about having a sense of urgency. What could possibly go wrong?
I'm sure one more PowerPoint presentation on the ultimate and inevitable demise of ISIL is just what we need.
