Islamist fighters defect as toll rises
Intel suggests strikes have begun to thin ISIL ranks
Defections of Islamic State fighters — a closely watched measure by officials of the U.S.-led coalition — have begun to thin the ranks of the militants in Iraq in the last month, intelligence reports and drone footage show.
Wholesale defections, sparsely manned checkpoints and elite foreign fighters pressed into mundane duty indicate that the U.S.-led bombing campaign and advances by Kurdish forces are eroding the forces of the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, said Army Col. Steve Warren, the top spokesman for the counter-ISIL coalition in Baghdad.
Top military officials estimate that the campaign has killed 23,000 Islamic State fighters, raising their death toll by 3,000 since mid- October. Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, who oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East as chief of Central Command, told troops last week in Iraq that the campaign is inflicting maximum pain on the enemy, according to a military official who attended the meeting but who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.
Warren cautioned that evidence of Islamic State manpower shortages was largely anecdotal. When indicators are combined, however, they show strains on the group’s fighting force, he said. Islamic State fighters continues to field about 20,000 to 30,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria, and they hold key Iraqi cities of Mosul and Ramadi, and large portions of Syria.
It’s also too soon to tell if apparent strain on the group is a long-term trend, said Michael O’Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution. “I view those as provisional signs of progress,” O’Hanlon said. “Individual metrics like these can be deceptive, especially given the difficulty
On the night that
CHICAGO Rahm Emanuel was elected mayor in 2011, he framed his victory as one for Chicagoans who wanted to see the “old ways” of this city melt way.
More than four years later, this past week shows that The Chicago Way — the city’s shorthand for its politics in which corruption, patronage and ineptitude have long been part of the landscape — is alive and well.
After Emanuel’s administration was forced by court order to release an explosive video Tuesday of a white police officer pumping 16 shots into Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old black teen, the mayor called for calm, so the city could begin “healing.”
Emanuel got his wish for peaceful protests, but questions are mounting for the mayor, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.
uWhy did an 86-minute section of a surveillance video from a nearby Burger King — which the McDonald family’s attorneys believe may have shown what happened just before the shooting — get deleted?
uHow is it possible for the city’s independent police review authority to have looked over nearly 400 shootings involving police since 2007, more than any city in the USA, and found only one to be unjustified?
uHow could it possibly have taken 13 months to come to a decision last week to press charges against the police officer in the McDonald case?
The mayor resisted releasing the police dashcam video from the Oct. 20, 2014, shooting, citing ongoing state and federal criminal probes.
The city’s top attorney described to the City Council months ago the grim details of the incident before the council voted to pay a $5 million settlement to the McDonald family with taxpayer money.
The video shows McDonald, who prosecutors say punctured a tire of a squad car before the shooting, veering away from police when Officer Jason Van Dyke shoots the teen 16 times. Thirteen of the shots were fired while McDonald was on the ground.
Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder on Tuesday, just hours before the city released the dashcam video.
The video was at odds with a narrative pushed by the department and police union that McDonald, who prosecutors said had PCP in his system and was holding a knife with a 3-inch blade, lunged at Van Dyke before he opened fire.
The city’s decision to sit on the video for more than a year is flummoxing.
Other cities with recent police-involved incidents caught on camera quickly calculated that releasing video footage is the best salve against an angry public reaction.
For example, authorities in July quickly released a video in which Samuel DuBose, 43, was fatally shot by University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tens- ing during a routine stop. Tensing claimed he fired because DuBose drove away and dragged the officer, who said his arm was caught in the car.
Police body camera footage contradicted Tensing ’s claim. He was indicted on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges 10 days later.
Emanuel, who won re-election in an April runoff after an unexpectedly difficult race, may have benefited politically from a slow rollout of the chilling video.
The mayor was able to hold off a challenge from Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who is Latino, by winning the black vote. President Obama, whom Emanuel had served as the White House chief of staff, even campaigned on behalf of the mayor’s re-election.
Garcia told the Chicago Tribune he believes if the video was released before the election he would have defeated Emanuel.
The mayor’s allies, including David Axelrod, a former political adviser to Emanuel and Obama, are directing blame at Alvarez, the prosecutor.
“Why did it take a year to indict a CPD officer who shot a kid 16 times?” Axelrod posted on Twitter.
For her part, Alvarez, who faces a challenge in the county’s March primary, defended the pace of her office’s investigation, saying she had decided to charge Van Dyke “weeks ago,” but was waiting for the U.S. Attorney’s Office to complete its investigation.
McCarthy, the police superintendent who serves at the mayor’s pleasure, is expected to soon face a no-confidence vote from the City Council.
The superintendent says Emanuel “has made it very clear that he has my back.”
McCarthy may be right about Emanuel’s loyalty. But right now, a huge swath of Chicago wants to know if anyone has their back, too.
“Why did it take a year to indict a CPD officer who shot a kid 16 times?” David Axelrod, an ally of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, on Twitter