In a story that remained relatively below the radar this past week, seven American service members were injured trying to take out members of a terrorist organization that former President Trump had essentially eliminated during his first term.
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At least fourteen ISIS fighters were killed in a joint operation between the United States and Iraqi commandos in one of the largest counterterrorism operations in Iraq in years.
The mission involved 200 troops from both countries (though the vast majority were American), an operation of such scale that officials warn it is an indication of the Islamic State’s “resurgence in recent months.”
So the question becomes: Why did seven U.S. soldiers almost lose their lives fighting a terrorist organization that had largely been decimated under Trump?
At a campaign stop in Asheboro, North Carolina, late last month, the former president reminded voters that the group was defeated when he was in the White House.
“We defeated ISIS, we killed the world’s top terrorists, we secured our borders, we achieved energy independence, we stood up to China, we protected Israel, we made peace in the Middle East … and we didn’t start wars,” Trump told the crowd.
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A report by the BBC on March 23rd, 2019, indicates how thoroughly the United States under the 45th president had eradicated ISIS, as the media outlet announced the group had lost its “final territory.”
“At its height, (the Islamic State) controlled 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) of land stretching across Syria and Iraq,” they wrote, noting the organization had now been left “with all but a few hundred square meters near Syria’s border with Iraq.”
That’s square meters.
Now, however, Central Command, according to the New York Times, reveals “the number of attacks claimed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria was on track to double this year.”
The group has coalesced to such a point that the danger they pose is not limited to that region alone.
A knife attack in Solingen, Germany, during a festival celebrating the city’s 650th anniversary, resulted in three deaths and eight injuries two weekends ago. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for this attack, stating that the assailant was a “soldier of the Islamic State”.
A terror plot targeting Taylor Swift’s concert in Vienna was thwarted by Austrian authorities around the same time. It led to the cancellation of three shows following the arrest of individuals linked to ISIS. The perpetrators had planned a large-scale attack aiming to kill “tens of thousands.”
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The threats have been widespread and numerous. The Times writes that “ISIS asserted responsibility for 153 attacks … in the first six months of 2024,” though they note officials refuse to provide a country-by-country breakdown of those attacks.
If they’re targeting a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, how long before our open borders allow enough ISIS-affiliated individuals through so they can plan something similar on American soil?
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in June reported that they had identified over 400 illegal immigrants who were brought into the country by “an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network.”
Over 50 of those people had escaped, with their whereabouts unknown.
The Biden-Harris administration has been criminally negligent in allowing the proliferation of ISIS when the terror organization was on its knees under Trump.
The current Democrat nominee has yet to provide any coherent foreign policy platform, but she needn’t worry. She’s on record as having played a key role in the Afghanistan debacle that resulted in an ISIS-K terror attack that killed 13 U.S. soldiers.
An aide to Harris reiterated that stance, saying their boss “was deeply engaged in the policy decision-making in early 2021 and strongly supported President Biden’s decision to end America’s longest war,” adding that they continue to work “together to eliminate leaders of al Qaeda and ISIS.”
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Since then, ISIS in Iraq, according to the Intercept, has persistently stolen American weapons “to arm themselves – and even kill Americans and their foreign partners – at U.S. taxpayer expense.”
In 2019, ISIS lost its final territory. Today, they are so resurgent that a massive operation had to be conducted, injuring seven American soldiers.
President Biden and Vice President Harris have been in the White House since January 2021. It’s not a coincidence that one of the most dangerous terror groups in the world grew during that time.
Imagine another four years of an ISIS resurgence under Harris’ second term.