A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans

[Agema]

I meal look how long it took to really defeat the like of Daesh even for an army with supply lines etc vs an enemy in a known location using Guerrilla tactics.

ISIS remember captured a large swathe of territory filled with assets. Some of these cities had banks, and all the contents were plundered by ISIS; likewise they robbed and taxed the local populations. They captured oil wells around Mosul and sold oil, and sold antiquities from historic sites. They used kidnapping for ransom and extortion, and recieved donations from global extremists. ISIS thus had an economy, income, and billions and billions of dollars to spend. The black market can then provide arms as easily as it does anything else, especially across borders that are as porous as those around the shattered and rebuilding Iraqi state.

Secondly, ISIS were in large part defeated by other militias with similar tactics such as the Kurds rather than by a modern, professional army.

Thirdly, with the need to hold territory in order to exploit it, ISIS were in many cases not operating as a guerrilla movement at all. The Battles of Mosul and Raqqa in 2016-17 were effectively full military operations storming heavily fortified cities.

 

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[stroopwafel]

ISIS remember captured a large swathe of territory filled with assets. Some of these cities had banks, and all the contents were plundered by ISIS; likewise they robbed and taxed the local populations. They captured oil wells around Mosul and sold oil, and sold antiquities from historic sites. They used kidnapping for ransom and extortion, and recieved donations from global extremists. ISIS thus had an economy, income, and billions and billions of dollars to spend. The black market can then provide arms as easily as it does anything else, especially across borders that are as porous as those around the shattered and rebuilding Iraqi state.

Secondly, ISIS were in large part defeated by other militias with similar tactics such as the Kurds rather than by a modern, professional army.

Thirdly, with the need to hold territory in order to exploit it, ISIS were in many cases not operating as a guerrilla movement at all. The Battles of Mosul and Raqqa in 2016-17 were effectively full military operations storming heavily fortified cities.

You're right on all those points but ISIS still continued on the foundations created by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and Al Qaida that had very few of those advantages and were under direct occupation. Point is that the U.S. and coalition forces thought they had 'defeated' the insurgency(which was really just sunnies turning against the ruthless tactics of Zarqawi) but then after Zarqawi's death re-emerged years later as ISIS during the chaotic Syrian civil war. The question is much more, does a militia or an insurgency have the support of the wider population(or rather, a large enough specific part of the population)? Usually they unite under a common threat. Now ofcourse the situation in the U.S. isn't as dire, and I think most of the opposition within the population will diminish as soon as Facebook is shut off and they can no longer buy twinkies and order pizza; but there is still a potential for a cascading effect of chaos and unrest. But to be honest I really wouldn't know how deep the sentiments actually run and how divided the U.S. really is and if the mostly online arguments are an adequate reflection. Time will tell I guess.