ISIS has been losing some territory recently, but the Islamist group is carrying out more attacks than ever before.

One of the reasons that ISIS has been able to keep up its offensive operations is that has lot and lots of military equipment, much of it captured from the Iraqi.

That's why ISIS has so much weaponry that originated in the US — the US gave loads of military hardware to the Iraqi army and ISIS took lots of it from them during a series of military victories.

Here are just a few of the weapons in ISIS' arsenal.

T-55 Tanks

It is estimated that ISIS has about 30 T-55 tanks, although it is unknown how well the organization can maintain and operate them. The T-55 tank series is a Soviet tank line that was produced from the end of World War II through the 1980s. 

Despite the tanks' age, they remain operational in up to 50 armies around the world. The tanks feature heavy armor, along with a 100-mm rifled gun and a secondary 7.62-mm machine gun. 

T-62 Tanks

ISIS has an estimated 15 T-62 model tanks. The T-62 was the main Soviet battle tank that was developed to replace the T-55. This tank was used extensively by the Iraqis to considerable success during the Iran-Iraq war. 

The T-62 is heavily armored, and is armed with a 115-mm tank gun along with two secondary machine guns. 

T-72 Ural Tanks

The militants have an estimated five to 10 T-72 tanks, although it is unknown whether they will be able to keep the vehicles in working order. The T-72 tank is the second-generation Soviet battle tank. These tanks first entered production in 1971, and they are still rolling off the assembly line. 

The T-72 is heavily armored and features a 125-mm main gun. It is also armed with a secondary machine gun and an antiaircraft gun.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Islamic State's battleground setbacks in Syria have increased the chance of an attack by the insurgents or their allies on Israel and Jordan, Israel's military chief said on Monday. 

While focused on shoring up its Syrian and Iraqi fiefdoms, Islamic State has in recent months stepped up attacks abroad and issued public threats to include Israel among its targets.

Lieutenant-General Gadi Eizenkot, chief of Israel's armed forces, said that with Russia intervening last year to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the insurgents' advance had been largely arrested.

An exception to this, Eizenkot said, was in the southern Syrian border nexus with Israel and Jordan.

"The successes against ISIS raise the probability, in my eyes, that we will see them turning their guns both against us and against the Jordanians," he told a conference hosted by Tel Aviv University's Institute for International Security Studies.

Islamic State itself does not have a strong presence on Syria's south-west border region, but one of several Islamist forces in the area, the Yarmouk Martyrs' Brigade, is believed by its opponents to be linked to the ultra-hardline militant group.

It has fought rival insurgent forces from Syria's al Qaeda offshoot, the Nusra Front, and Ahrar al-Sham for control of territory next to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and close to northern Jordan.

"In their strategic logic, there is a certain logic in connecting Israel with Jordan," Eizenkot said, and in the border area "they are not experiencing what the organization and other global jihadi groups are experiencing inside Syria".

A voice recording release on social media three weeks ago and attributed to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi warned that Israel was a target.

Jordan, one of two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel, has largely weathered the upheaval in much of the Middle East over the past five years, though it has absorbed major refugee influxes from Syria and Iraq, another neighbor wrecked by Islamic State insurgents. 

Jordan has low-key military backing from the United States and Israel, cooperation that the parties rarely discuss publicly.

Israel has formally kept out of the almost five-year-old Syrian civil war, though it has launched occasional bombing raids to thwart suspected transfers of advanced arms by Assad's government to allied Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas.

Hezbollah, which fought Israel's technologically superior military to standstill in the 2006 Lebanon war, remained a major threat and stood to receive boosted support from its Iranian patron thanks to the lifting of international sanctions against Tehran, Eizenkot said.

But he also described Hezbollah as cautious to open a new front with Israel, noting that while the Shi'ite militia had gained combat experience reinforcing Syrian government forces against Sunni Islamist-led rebels, it had also suffered losses.

Some 1,300 Hezbollah guerrillas had been killed and almost another 5,000 wounded in Syria, out of a regular fighting force of 20,000 and a reservist force of 20,000-25,000, Eizenkot said.

Hezbollah generally does not publish details on its casualties, and says it is ready to fight Israel again.

SEE ALSO: More than 400 civilians have been captured by ISIS militants after a major ground assault in Syria

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: NASA scientists are baffled by a mysterious pyramid structure they found in space

Western officials rejected a report that Russia is sending heavy weaponry to the US-designated terror organization Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Israeli news organization Y-Net reported last week.

"This report is baseless," the unnamed western officials told Y-Net. "This is an awkward attempt by Hezbollah to plant disinformation via a respected Western news site in order to muddy the waters between Israel and Russia."

Iran-backed Hezbollah commanders said that Russia has been sending them long-range tactical missiles, laser guided rockets, and anti-tank weapons "with no strings attached," according to The Daily Beast's Jesse Rosenfeld.

“We are strategic allies in the Middle East right now — the Russians are our allies and give us weapons,” one of the Hezbollah officers, who calls himself Commander Bakr, told the Beast.

Significantly, Russia does not consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Members of the Lebanese militant organization, backed by Iran, are also fighting on the same side as Russia — a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — in the Syrian civil war. 

Still, many experts are skeptical that Putin would prop up an organization that is not even its client — at the risk of unraveling a military agreement he made with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September.

During the meeting, Netanyahu reportedly told Putin that "our policy is to do everything to stop weapons from being sent to Hezbollah." He also asserted the right of the Israeli Defense Forces to attack militants suspected of preparing attacks from the Syrian Golan, on Israel's northern border with Lebanon.

"Hezbollah is an Iranian, not a Russian, client,"Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian security affairs and professor of global affairs at New York University, told Business Insider last week.

"While it's by no means impossible Moscow would be providing some weapons, I don't believe they are giving Hezbollah tactical missiles or anti-tank weapons. And I certainly don't believe that if Moscow were providing these weapons, it would be without strings."

He added: "Now, it may be that Hezbollah commanders told the Beast all this, but that's a long way short of proof."

Others maintain that it would not be at all surprising if Moscow were sending heavy weaponry to an Iranian client that is helping the Russia-backed Syrian regime battle its opponents. 

"The Putin administration has always made clear that it supports Hezbollah, including through military supplies,"Mark Kramer, the director for the Project on Cold War studies at Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian studies, told Business Insider in an email.

He added: "The additional supplies reported here represent an increase in the flow of arms, but this escalation is not especially surprising at a time when Russia is depending on Hezbollah and Iran to deploy troops in support of Bashar al-Assad's genocidal regime."

Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, echoed Kramer's sentiment that the report is largely unsurprising. 

"Russia recently said they do not consider Hezbollah a terrorist group and there are unconfirmed reports that Hezbollah militants participated in the search and rescue of the downed Russian Su-24 pilots," Zilberman said, referring to the pilots who had manned the Russian warplane shot down by Turkey in November.

Heavy weaponry or not, it is clear that Russia and Hezbollah have established some form of mutually beneficial relationship. 

"The Hezbollah forces complement the Russian special forces and Russian bomber aircraft that are attacking Assad's opponents," Kramer, of Harvard, said.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, benefits from working alongside the Russians, gaining a military education that "will likely enhance the group's ongoing shift toward a more offensive-minded strategy," according to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

One Hezbollah field commander told the Daily Beast that "the intervention of the Russians made it much easier" to regain territory around Latakia, in northwestern Syria, which was initially "very difficult" for the fighters. 

Pro-government forces won their most significant victory since the start of the Russian air campaign last week when they captured the northwestern city of Salma, in Latakia.

SEE ALSO: The US is considering a new plan for Syria — and the Kurds 'will not be happy about it'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Cruz: The birther argument would make Trump ineligible to run for President

The number of deaths due to armed conflicts is on the rise, and geopolitical violence hasn't been this bad in decades according to a new report.

In an expansive, 70-page note on the geopolitical outlook and its impacts, Tina Fordham and her team at Citi noted 2014 was the most violent year globally in two decades.

"Due to the escalation of several conflicts and the extreme violence in Syria, the number of battle-related deaths in 2014 was the highest during the post-Cold War period," said the note. "When looking at deaths from organized violence (including state- based conflict, conflict between non-state actors and one-sided killings of civilians), 2014 saw around 126,000 fatalities. By comparison, the death count in organized violence had not exceeded 100,000 since the 1994 Rwandan genocide."

Fordham said that the number of death also coincides with a steady increase in armed conflicts. In 2014 there were 40 recorded armed conflicts in 27 locations, up from 34 the year before based on the most recent data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program.

"This is the third consecutive year in which the number of conflicts recorded has risen and is the highest number of conflicts reported since 1999." said the note. "Although the number of conflicts is lower than during the immediate post-Cold War period, it points to an upward trend in the number of armed conflicts in the past 10 years."

Fordham and her team noted that a possible reason behind the increase in deaths is the type of conflicts taking place. Instead of wars between nation-states, more than 50% of current conflicts are based on extremist ideologies.

"A further consequence of the growth of extremist-fueled conflicts is that they are more difficult to resolve, a feature which adds to our concern about the capacity of diplomacy to reduce these new, higher levels of conflict," said the note.

This is especially relevant in Syria, Fordham noted, as ISIS is a perfect example of an extremist group, or "non-state actors who lack a seat at the negotiating table", that prevent conventional diplomacy from succeeded.

SEE ALSO: Western officials: Report that Russia is arming Hezbollah 'an awkward attempt by Hezbollah to plant disinformation'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: What this Navy SEAL's '40% rule' can teach you about success

Syrian peace talks due next week are looking increasingly moot as a string of recent battlefield victories by government troops have bolstered President Bashar Assad's hand and plunged the rebels into disarray.

The government's advances add to the obstacles that have scuttled chances of halting — at least anytime soon — the five-year civil war that has killed a quarter of a million people, displaced half the country and enabled the radical Islamic State group to seize a third of Syria's territory.

A proxy war on the ground between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, disorganization among the rebels after a top commander and several other local leaders were killed, rigid and disparate U.S. and Russian positions regarding Assad's future, and a spat over which groups will be invited to the negotiating table have all added to the conflagration.

"I don't think we should expect any major results," said Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics. "Assad really believes that time is on his side, that he is winning, that the opposition is in tatters."

The Jan. 25 talks in Geneva are meant to start a political process to end the conflict that started in 2011 as a largely peaceful uprising against Assad's rule but escalated into an all-out war after a harsh state crackdown. The plan calls for cease-fires in parallel to the talks, a new constitution and elections in a year and a half.

On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged countries supporting opposing sides in the Syrian conflict to redouble efforts to reach agreement on a list of opposition groups that are to be invited to the talks.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the United Nations is focusing on starting the talks on Jan. 25, but he said it can't send out invitations until the key countries agree on a list of opposition invitees. He hinted the talks could be delayed, telling reporters they would be notified "as soon as we can" if there is any "slippage" in the date.

The fighting in Syria intensified since Russia intervened militarily with airstrikes last September, ostensibly to target Islamic State militants and other extremists. But the airstrikes helped Assad push back rebels on several fronts and capture dozens of villages in the north and west.

In November, government troops broke a three-year siege of the Kweiras air base in the northern province of Aleppo, and in December they captured another air base, Marj al-Sultan, in an opposition stronghold near the capital, Damascus.

Allied fighters from the Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group, as well as Iranian military advisers and pro-government militias, have helped the army take several areas in and around Latakia province, the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite sect, which dominates the military and government.

The latest victory came last week with the capture of the town of Salma, one of the most significant government advances since the Russian air campaign began. Overlooking the coast, it is only 12 kilometers (seven miles) from the border with Turkey, a key supporter of rebels in the area.

"The Syrian army has shifted from a defensive mode to offense," said Gerges. "Before the Russian intervention the army was bleeding, it was desperately trying to maintain its position, but now it has achieved major tactical gains on many fronts."

This does not bode well for the Geneva talks, as neither side will be interested in making compromises while the front lines are in a state of flux, Gerges added.

Damascus officials have indicated lately that Syria's future will be decided on the battlefield, and have repeatedly said the rebels — whom they refer to as "terrorists"— should not expect to gain anything from the talks that they could not achieve on the ground.

Meanwhile, relations have been deteriorating between the two main players backing opposite sides — Saudi Arabia and Iran. The kingdom's execution earlier this month of a Shiite cleric who had criticized the ruling family brought a wave of recriminations from Tehran. Protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran, prompting Riyadh to cut diplomatic ties.

That escalation has undermined hopes that arose at the United Nations in December, when a resolution established a new "road map" set to begin with the Geneva talks.

The Saudis and the Iranians are already facing off in Yemen, where the kingdom is fighting Shiite rebels who are supported by Tehran. Riyadh is highly skeptical of the nuclear deal with Iran and wary of the billions of dollars that will fill Tehran's coffers now that international sanctions have been lifted.

"The Saudis are in a very confrontational mood, and that's not just with regard to Syria but also in Yemen," said Shadi Hamid, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for Middle East Policy.

While Syrian opposition factions outside the country say they hope to see some confidence-building measures byAssad before the Geneva talks, dozens of insurgent groups within Syria said last week they wouldn't attend at all unless humanitarian access was granted to areas under siege and prisoners were released.

"The regime is trying to achieve as much as possible on the ground before the peace talks, which will be hollow," said Zakaria Ahmad, a spokesman for a moderate rebel faction operating near the Turkish border.

It remains unclear which rebel groups will be invited to join the talks. Russia and Syria want to bar many moderate Islamic groups which are backed by the Saudis, who will insist on giving them a place at the table.

Meanwhile, top international players — the United States and Russia — disagree on the basic issue of whether Assad should be allowed to stay on and run in presidential elections or if he should step down as part of the transition. The Saudis and much of the West are adamant that he should leave, while Iran and Russia say his fate should be decided in elections.

"As long as the basic question of Assad's future is not resolved there will be no elections — it's the central issue," said Rami Khouri of the American University of Beirut's Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs.

(Associated Press writer Zeina Karam contributed to this report.)

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This one ingredient is making a lot of Americans fat

Each day, in the summer of 2015, 10-15 boats packed with men, women and children fleeing Syria floated ashore on the Greek island of Lesbos. For the locals, this became so routine that a rescue system was created to help facilitate the mass influx of refugees. Mary Snell, an American who has been spending time in Greece since 1973, used her iPhone to shoot video of one of these rescues. She calls it "an example of ordinary Greeks doing extraordinary things in this time of crisis."

Produced by Jenner Deal. Narration by Sara Silverstein. Special thanks to Mary Snell.

Follow BI Video:On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State on Tuesday released 270 of an estimated 400 civilians, most of them women and children, kidnapped at the weekend when its fighters attacked Syrian government-held areas in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said, however, that the ultra-hardline group rounded up another 50 men on Tuesday during raids on houses in areas seized during four days of fighting in Deir al-Zor, the provincial capital.

Rami Abdulrahman, the Observatory's head, said that the group has kept male prisoners between the ages of 14 and 55 for more questioning.

"Those who they see have ties with the regime will be punished and those who (do) not must undertake a religious course based on the group's interpretation of Islam," he said.

The civilians released will remain in Islamic State-run villages in the province of Deir al-Zor, which links the group's de facto capital in Raqqa with territory controlled by the militant group in neighboring Iraq.

The group, which controls of most of the province, has laid siege since last March to remaining government-held areas in the city of Deir al-Zor.

(Reporting by Mariam Karouny; editing by Chris Reese, G Crosse)

Join the conversation about this story »

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 4 lottery winners who lost it all

The US-led military coalition's fight against the Islamic State militant group entered a new phase on Wednesday, with defense ministers from the seven countries most heavily involved in the operation pledging to continue fighting and look for ways to more aggressively target the group.

The United States, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Australia and the Netherlands made the promise here after a joint meeting hosted by US Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and his French counterpart, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

The group said in a joint statement that it has "expressed our broad support for the campaign plan objectives, and the need to continue gathering momentum in our campaign."

Separately, Carter announced during a news conference alongside Le Drian at the French defense ministry that he has invited leaders from all 26 nations involved in the military side of the campaign against the Islamic State, along with Iraq, to meet in three weeks in Brussels in a first-time meeting and detail how they may be able to offer more resources.

That leaves out 37 other countries that are a part of the coalition in some way, but not contributing militarily.

"Every nation must come prepared to discuss further contributions," Carter said of the countries invited to attend the meeting in Brussels.

Le Drian said in the news conference that the United States holds the leadership role in the fight against the Islamic State, but that the French are on the front lines of the battle with about 3,500 service members involved.

Over the last few weeks, the Islamic State has suffered a series of defeats, providing reason to step up operations against the group with a consistent military strategy, he said.

Le Drian added that the cities of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq -- de facto capitals of the Islamic State -- must be won back, but that the military coalition also must sever the militant group's control of surrounding areas. The ideology of the group also must be combated, he added, noting the large numbers of people who have traveled to Iraq and Syria from across the world to join the ISIS.

Carter said there is no other defense minister who he has spent as much time discussing the Islamic State fight with than Le Drian, and that they discussed accelerating the campaign against the militants even before the terrorist attacks in and around Paris in November that killed 130 people.

The meeting came after a the arrival of an elite US "expeditionary targeting force" in Iraq that is expected to include up to 200 Special Operations troops. It is not yet clear whether it has begun carrying out operations, but it is expected to conduct raids, collect intelligence and carry out other operations against Islamic State leaders.

As of Jan. 10, the US-led military coalition has carried out 6,341 airstrikes in Iraq and 3,219 in Syria, according to the Pentagon. Of those, the United States has carried out the majority, with 4,361 Iraq and 3,029 in Syria.

The rest of the military coalition has carried out 1,980 strikes in Iraq and 190 in Syria. The countries doing so in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and Britain. In Syria, the nations that have carried out airstrikes include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Britain.

SEE ALSO: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-pentagons-most-advanced-drone-keeps-falling-out-of-the-sky-2016-1

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here comes the Islamic State's worst nightmare — more female fighters

Upcoming report from the Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project – Al Qaeda and ISIS:  Existential Threats to the US and Europe

In this second excerpt from the upcoming report from ISW and CTP, the authors – Drs. Fred and Kim Kagan – examine US grand strategic objectives, the intersecting threats the West faces, and possible endstates to the crisis. Read the first excerpt here.

American grand strategic objectives

Ensuring the safety of the American people and homeland is the first and most fundamental obligation of the American government.

Current policies are not fulfilling that obligation and are unlikely to do so if continued. This planning exercise has therefore focused exclusively on the problems that threaten the safety and prosperity of the American people and on ways of ensuring their security today and into the future. No secondary considerations – democracy promotion, humanitarian activities, or support and expansion of American values, for example – have been allowed to intrude into our deliberations, despite the importance we and many Americans attach to each.

This exercise thus considered only the actions required to accomplish what the authors of NSC-68, America’s strategy during the Cold War, so articulately described as “the fundamental purpose” of the United States: “to assure the integrity and vitality of our free society, which is founded upon the dignity and worth of the individual.” They continued, in words that are as true today as they were when they were first written 65 years ago:

<p">Three realities emerge as a consequence of this purpose: our determination to maintain the essential elements of individual freedom, as set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights; our determination to create conditions under which our free and democratic system can live and prosper; and our determination to fight if necessary to defend our way of life....

We restate these realities as concrete objectives to guide American grand strategy in the current crisis:

Drifting along the current path in order to avoid dangerous and unpleasant action will almost certainly fail to achieve vital American national security interests.

• Secure the American people and homeland.
• Protect, retain, and promote by example our free and democratic way of life.
• Retain and promote a free market international economic system, which relies on the free flow of people and goods throughout the world.
• Protect and strengthen a rules-based international order.
• Retain and strengthen our alliances and assist our allies to survive and prosper in the face of common dangers.
• These objectives are connected and interdependent, but all are required for securing the American people and our Constitution and way of life.

What "protecting the homeland" means

Ensuring the physical safety of Americans within the United States is not a sufficient aim for US grand strategy. America is more than a collection of people who happen to live within given borders.

It is an idea, a way of life, and a set of common values still broadly accepted within our society despite the over-heated rhetoric of a fraught and dangerous time.

Today’s caustic discourse has created in the minds of many a belief that Americans no longer share a common set of values, and certainly not that which animated the Founding Fathers of this republic.

From this review of our core values and their implications emerges a clear set of requirements and constraints that must control the development of any strategy to respond to the multifarious crises we face today:

America cannot abandon its values in order to ensure its physical safety.

The threat to those values and to our security comes from beyond our shores, and it must be met and defeated there without compromising the American idea at home.

The US must lead in the struggle to protect its own people and interests, but must also mobilize in its support all of those with compatible values and interests.

<p">America must not aim to remake all countries and peoples into our own image, but neither can it tolerate the persistence of powerful groups or states actively seeking to undermine or destroy our values and security.

US grand strategy must set achievable goals and adjust to new circumstances over time, not imagining that any set of policies can resolve all problems for all time.

Americans must understand the current crisis in all of its depth and breadth, recognizing the interconnectedness of many disparate conflicts but not falsely homogenizing them under a single rubric.

The US must use all of the appropriate instruments of state, economic, social, and cultural power to achieve these aims, not preferring one or spurning another a priori, but using all in balanced application as each circumstance requires.

Americans must not despair of succeeding in a long and difficult struggle despite mistakes and setbacks, disappointments and fears.

The intersecting threats of today

Salafi-jihadi military organizations, principally al Qaeda and ISIS, pose the most imminent threat to the security and values of the United States and Europe. Although these groups currently lack the ability to destroy us militarily, the danger they present is no less existential for that. Already their actions are causing the peoples of the West to turn against one another, to fear and suspect their neighbors, to constrain their freedoms, and to disrupt their ordinary lives.

Iran, China, and Russia all fear Salafi-jihadi groups and are fighting them in various ways. The interests and values of all three states are at odds with one another as well as with our own. There is thus no overt or covert alliance or coalition among these states, ISIS, and al Qaeda, nor a concerted conspiracy to disrupt the world order together. Yet their actions are mutually-reinforcing in the weakening of states, the destruction of the international consensus required to meet current challenges, and the continuous expansion of armed conflict in both scale and intensity.

The US cannot thus understand the challenges of ISIS, al Qaeda, Russia, Iran, and China separately from one another, nor design individual strategies for dealing with each in isolation. Neither can we seek a single grand solution, agreeing with all partners on a resolution to all problems. American grand strategy must, rather, examine component parts of the global challenge we face in the context of all global actors and ensure that the solutions proposed for each component advance solutions for all other components to the greatest possible extent.

Endstate for the current crisis

The present exercise considered one such component, the requirement to develop an approach to defeating ISIS and al Qaeda taking into consideration the intersection of that undertaking with the challenges posed by Russia and Iran (China playing only a very limited role in this matter).

It determined that the endstate required to achieve core American national security interests as defined above is that the United States and Europe can assure the physical security of their peoples and preserve their values and way of life while controlling the continued threat from Salafi-jihadi military organizations through the normal law-enforcement means appropriate for democratic societies at peace.

The next stage of this planning process, therefore, must be a re-assessment of the nature of the enemy and the threat it poses to the international order and to the security of the European and American homelands.

We can then return to the task of defining specific regional endstates and objectives that, together with appropriate actions at our borders and within our societies and states, can achieve our over-arching requirements, protect our peoples, and sustain our values and way of life.

SEE ALSO: GATES: Don't expect the nuclear agreement to lead to a more moderate Iran

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Former Defense Secretary calls out Trump for 'over-the-top’ ISIS plan

Former Secretary of Defense Dr. Robert Gates recently stopped by Business Insider to talk about his new book "A Passion For Leadership: Lessons on Change and Reform From Fifty Years of Public Service."

We asked Gates what he considers to be the main factors that led to the existence of ISIS.

Produced by Graham Flanagan and Pamela Engel

Follow BI Video:On Facebook 

Join the conversation about this story »

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is accelerating efforts to help Turkey clamp down on its border with Syria, senior U.S. officials said, and for the first time will offer technologies to Ankara to help it secure the frontier.

Washington and Ankara have been discussing for months how to seal the last piece of unsecured border, a 98-kilometer-long (60 mile-long) stretch that has served as a thruway for Islamic State fighters, black-market goods and war materiel.

Islamic State controls the Syrian side of the border, and the effort to secure it assumed new urgency after November's deadly Paris attacks. Some of the Paris attackers used or attempted to use the Syria-Turkey border to travel between Islamic State-held territory and Europe, the officials said.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is due to arrive in Turkey on Thursday and will meet with President Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to discuss the fight against Islamic State.

Biden's visit to Istanbul is the latest in a string of high-level visits to the NATO ally. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson in February will lead an inter-agency delegation and offer the Turkish government a menu of specific border-control technologies, the U.S. officials told Reuters.

Aerostat surveillance balloons and anti-tunneling technology are on the U.S. menu of equipment likely on offer, and the U.S. is prepared to share methods for detecting the material used in improvised explosive devices, the officials said.

"We like what we’re seeing in terms of their actions and we want to work with them to tighten the screws a little bit further," a senior administration official said of Turkey. He and others requested anonymity to discuss diplomatic negotiations.

Turkish steps to secure the border include the deployment of 25,000 more regular army troops and the installation of concrete barriers and fences.

Still, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress last month that "Turkey must do more to control its often porous border" with Syria.

During a visit by Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford two weeks ago, Turkey proposed that the United States train a group of Sunni Arabs to help secure the area on the Syrian side of the border, U.S. officials said.

The officials said that the United States wants to know more about the proposed fighters before agreeing to support them.

U.S.-Turkish discussions have been complicated by competing priorities. Turkey is focused on containing Kurdish separatists and the United States has the stated aim of destroying Islamic State militants who control areas of Syria and Iraq.

"We can try to move ISIL up in sort of the priority ranking but when somebody perceives something as a true existential threat, it’s difficult to argue with that," a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters, using an alternate acronym for Islamic State.

Johnson's trip is an effort to respond to Turkish complaints that Washington has not been specific about steps it wants Turkey to take, the U.S. officials said.

"We have made a list, a much more specific list," the senior administration official said. "And that will be filtered through ... their view of the problem and what’s feasible, what they think they can do."

The Homeland Security secretary's visit culminates lower-level talks that have been going on since August.

Those talks "gained new urgency" after Islamic State-directed shootings and bombings that killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13, a second senior administration official said.

"The fact that they came up through Syria, through the remaining border gap is something that has gained everyone’s attention," this official said, declining to be more specific.

For its part, Turkey said it detained one of the Paris suicide bombers, Brahim Abdeslam, at its border in January 2015 and deported him to Belgium - where he was set free.

SEE ALSO: Militants attack storage tanks near Libya's Ras Lanuf oil terminal

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Putin had another epic news conference — here are all the incredible and outrageous things he said

DAVOS (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday that internationally brokered talks between Syria's government and opposition groups this month may be delayed by a day or two, but there would be no fundamental delay.

Asked at the start of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Davos if he was concerned that a delay in the talks that have been scheduled to start in Geneva on Jan. 25 may lead to a loss of momentum, Kerry said:

"When you say a delay, it may be a day or two for invitations, but there is not going to be a fundamental delay. The process will begin on the 25th and they will get together and see where we are."

The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Wednesday the talks may be delayed, but major powers must keep up the pressure to bring participants to the table.

SEE ALSO: US offers Turkey technology to block ISIS at Syria border

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: EX-PENTAGON CHIEF: These are the 2 main reasons ISIS was born

Denmark is considering moving migrants into camps outside its towns and cities, a tactic that the anti-immigration Danish People's Party (DF) hopes will shift the focus of government immigration policy to repatriation rather than integration.

Denmark has been widely criticized in the past month for proposals to tighten immigration laws including using refugees' valuables to pay for their stay and postponing family reunification to three years.

Led by the anti-immigration, eurosceptic DF party, parliament passed the resolution, which will force the government to come up with a proposal by March to build state-backed "villages" to replace housing in cities and towns.

Some tent camps have already been set up for single male refugees to give migrant families priority in cities.

The refugee debate is hot in Denmark, which took in a record 20,000 refugees last year, with a poll showing 70 percent of voters see it as the most important issue on the political agenda, according to the daily paper Berlingske.

A separate poll showed 37 percent disagreed with giving more residence permits to refugees, compared with about 20 percent in September.

Foreign Minister Kristian Jensen traveled to Geneva on Thursday to explain his government's policy to the United Nation's Human Rights Council during the organization's regular review of the human rights situation in the country.

The Danish government has also been summoned before the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) committee of the EU parliament on Monday to defend its reforms.

Parliament held a second debate on Thursday on the proposals to tighten immigration rules and takes a final vote on Jan. 26.

Referring to those proposals, Amnesty's Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia, said Gauri van Gulik, said: "The international community must call Denmark out as it enters a race to the bottom".

"Denmark was one of the first champions of the Refugee Convention, but its government is now brazenly creating blocks to the well-being and safety of refugee families."

The seven-month-old government, which initially opposed the measure, has just 34 out of 179 seats in parliament and depends on the support of parties to the right of center, including the Danish People's Party.

(Editing by Sabina Zawadzki and Louise Ireland)

Join the conversation about this story »

The US and Russia want to begin negotiations over Syria's future next week in Geneva as originally planned, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a news conference on Wednesday after meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Zurich.

Lavrov's comments came after days of speculation that the process might be delayed as major players in Syria's civil war — including Russia, Iran, Turkey, the US, and Saudi Arabia — continue to bicker over who should be invited to represent the opposition at the talks.

That the US appears determined to move forward with the process on the agreed-upon date — even without, five days before talks are due to begin, a set delegation to represent the rebels — seems to experts like another example of the administration "trying to kick the can down the road" when it comes to making policy decisions about Syria.

That is according to Tony Badran, a Middle East expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He said Wednesday that the White House "just wants to get a process going"— even if that process is not entirely substantial.

"The administration wants to see if the Russians can wrap this up," Badran told Business Insider, referring to the outsize influence Russia gained over the conflict's trajectory when its warplanes intervened on behalf of the Syrian government in September.

"If they can be done with this headache, great. If not, it's not Obama's problem," Badran added. "He leaves it to his successor. The only thing the administration wants is to check this box and get this thing moving."

When asked about the timetable of the talks on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner stressed that "deadlines matter." But he suggested it wouldn't be "the end of the world" if the timeline slipped by a few days.

"If it slips one or two days, that's not the end of the world either," he told reporters. "We recognize — let me put it this way. We recognize that this is a difficult process, it has been a difficult process, it will continue to be a difficult process going forward. But we have to keep the pressure on, and we have to keep moving forward."

On Thursday, Kerry said he did not anticipate a "fundamental delay" in the talks.

"When you say a delay, it may be a day or two for invitations, but there is not going to be a fundamental delay," Kerry told reporters at the start of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Davos, Switzerland. "The process will begin on the 25th, and they will get together and see where we are."

Obama has consistently favored a backseat role in negotiating an end to the nearly five-year-old civil war, instead of one that requires him to confront the Syrian regime and its backers head-on. Critics say he has therefore chosen to "kick the can down the road" more often than not when faced with making policy decisions that might put him at odds with Russia and Iran.

Obama's critics argue that he has been capitulating to the Russians in Syria since 2013, when he decided against launching airstrikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad in favor of a Russia-brokered agreement to have the regime's chemical-weapons arsenal shipped out of Syria and destroyed.

Russia's incursion into Syria in September consequently offered the Obama administration something it has sought since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011: a way to stay in the background.

Some experts — including Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies — have argued that Russia's dominating role in the conflict was not an inevitability, but a gift from an administration that never wanted to play a leading role in the first place.

That, in turn, would explain why the White House has done little to counter Russia's expanding political influence in the region, while steadily softening its position on Syria's embattled leader — from "Assad must go" in 2013 to "the US is not seeking regime change" in 2015.

In September, Badran said in an interview that this shifting stance was also part of Obama's larger strategy to keep the US in the background.

"Play for time, and let the dynamics of an ever worsening situation improve your position diplomatically," he said. "In a way, Obama and Assad are reading from the same playbook."

Four months later, the administration has yet to take meaningful action against the regime — or against Russia's attacks on Syrian civilians and Western-backed opposition groups.

The US even allowed Russia to extend an invitation to Iran — Russia's ally in the war that has been propping up Assad for years — in November to participate in the latest round of Syria peace talks.

Badran said that's why he didn't think "the administration cares that much" about who represents the opposition in Geneva. "They gave the lead to Russia," he said.

That lead has evidently proved useful: America's top general, Joseph Dunford, said Wednesday that Russian airstrikes had strengthened Assad, who "is in a better place now" than he was before Russia intervened.

In 2013, Washington may have seen an emboldened Assad as a hindrance to meaningful peace talks. But if Lavrov's comments on Wednesday are any indication, Russia and the US now share the same short-term objective.

"We do not have any kind of thoughts about changing the beginning of the talks from January to February," the Russian foreign minister told reporters. "This is the position of Russia and the USA."

SEE ALSO: The US' prisoner swap with Iran shows that the landmark nuclear deal 'wasn't a nuclear deal at all'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Watch Trump go on a rant over a 'popping' microphone at a rally: 'Don't pay the son of a b----'

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute conducted an intensive multi-week planning exercise to frame, design, and evaluate potential courses of action that the United States could pursue to defeat the threat from the Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) and al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria.

ISW and CTP will publish the findings of this exercise in multiple reports. The first report examined America’s global grand strategic objectives as they relate to the threat from ISIS and al Qaeda.

This second report defines American strategic objectives in Iraq and Syria, identify the minimum necessary conditions for ending the conflicts there, and compare US objectives with those of Iran, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia in order to understand actual convergences and divergences.

The differences mean that the US cannot rely heavily on international partners to achieve its objectives. Subsequent reports will provide a detailed assessment of the situation on the ground in Syria and present the planning group’s evaluation of several courses of action.

The key findings of this second report are:

• The US must accomplish four strategic objectives in Iraq and Syria to achieve vital national interests and secure its people: 1) destroy enemy groups; 2) end the communal, sectarian civil wars; 3) set conditions to prevent the reconstitution of enemy groups; and 4) extricate Iraq and Syria from regional and global conflicts.
• Any American strategy must take urgent measures to strengthen Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi and prepare contingency efforts for his fall. The collapse of the Abadi government and return of his predecessor Nuri al Maliki would be disastrous for the fight against ISIS.

• Ongoing international negotiations within the Vienna Framework are bypassing essential requirements for long-term success in Syria. Re-establishing a stable, unitary Syrian state that secures American interests requires the US and its partners to 1) destroy ISIS, Jabhat al Nusra, and foreign Salafi-jihadi groups in Syria; 2) identify and strengthen interlocutors representing the Syrian opposition; 3) facilitate a negotiated settlement between the Syrian regime and opposition; 4) obtain regional acceptance of that settlement; 5) establish peace-enforcement mechanisms; and 6) reconstruct state institutions.
• The Salafi-jihadi militant base in Syria poses a threat to the US, but the US must not simply attack it because that would put the US at war with many Sunnis who must be incorporated into a future, post-Assad inclusive government. The US must separate reconcilable from irreconcilable elements. These other Salafi-jihadi groups must meet the following conditions essential for core US security objectives in order to participate: break with Jabhat al Nusra and ISIS; accept the principle of a future pluralistic and unitary Syrian state; reject violent jihad; commit to disarming to a policing and defensive level; and commit to the elimination of the current shari’a court system and the establishment of political institution-based governance.

• The superficial convergence of Iranian, Russian, Turkish, and Saudi strategic objectives with those of the US on ISIS as a threat masks significant divergences that will undermine US security requirements. Iran and Russia both seek to reduce and eliminate US influence in the Middle East and are not pursuing strategies that will ultimately defeat al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria or Iraq. Turkey’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, some linked to al Qaeda, stem from the ruling party’s intent to reestablish itself as an independent, Muslim, regional power. Finally, Saudi Arabia’s objectives remain shaped by perceived existential threats from Iran and a growing succession crisis, causing key divergences, especially over support to Salafi-jihadi groups. The US must lead efforts to resolve the crisis in Syria and cannot outsource them to partners.

You can read the full report here»

SEE ALSO: ISIS and al Qaeda are more than just terrorist groups — and they're existential threats to the US and Europe

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The US Navy's last line of defense is this ultimate gun

The rise of Islamic State (IS) has reaffirmed what al-Qaeda and the Taliban proved last decade: strategic communications, particularly counter-propaganda efforts, remains one of the key weaknesses of Western counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency strategy.

In November 2007, the then-US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said:

It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the internet than America. As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago: “How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world’s greatest communication society?”

The world now faces an even more sophisticated foe. The IS propaganda machine has eclipsed its predecessors and peers in its reach, resonance and relevance to local and transnational audiences.

Less territory but greater appeal

The pull of IS propaganda and its ability to mobilise supporters is reflected in some disturbing trends. In the same year that IS lost almost 13,000km² of territory across Syria and Iraq, the number of foreign fighters it attracted reportedly doubled.

Official IS wilayats (provinces) have emerged in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia. A study of Islamist-inspired terrorist plots in the West between January 2011 and June 2015 revealed that of 69 plots, 30 had an IS connection. Twenty-six of these occurred between July 2014 and June 2015.

IS plots were almost twice as likely to be executed compared to non-IS-connected plots. This is despite most perpetrators having not met or communicated with IS leaders.

How broader communities perceive the IS threat is also indicative of the potency of the group’s propaganda. In Afghanistan, where IS’s Wilayat Khurasan has attracted disgruntled locals and former Pakistan and Afghan Taliban members, an Asia Foundation survey found that 54.2% of respondents who had heard of IS believed that the group posed a current or future threat to their district.

Similarly, the 2015 Lowy Institute poll found that Australians saw terrorism as the highest national security priority: 69% of respondents believed that IS’s rise represented the greatest threat to Australia’s security.

Even in the US, where attacks by militant right-wingers are more frequent than those by jihadists, IS regularly dominates domestic security discussions. IS’s propaganda campaign has been a crucial driver of these trends, but so too has been the failure to counter it effectively.

Deciphering the siren call

Having analysed Arabic and English IS communiques and interviewed dozens of locals from the Middle East and South Asia who are battling IS media, it is clear that a potent strategic logic is driving the group’s propaganda campaign.

The overarching purpose of IS messaging is to shape the perceptions and polarise the support of contested populations – friends and foes alike. It achieves this by producing communiques that appeal to its audience’s rational-choice and identity-choice decision-making processes.

IS’s propaganda trademark may be identity-choice appeals that call for fellow Sunnis to join “their” caliphate and follow “true” Islam. However, rational-choice appeals (cost-benefit considerations), especially those that highlight IS’s politico-military successes versus its opponents' failures, feature prominently in IS messaging.

By interweaving rational- and identity-choice appeals in its messages, IS is aligning powerful decision-making processes in its audience. This may help explain the seemingly rapid radicalisation of its supporters.

Furthermore, IS propaganda lures both friends and foes into disproportionately focusing on the group’s strengths and overlooking its weaknesses. At the same time, it exaggerates the perceived weaknesses of anti-IS forces and disparages their strengths.

To further boost these dynamics, IS’s rational- and identity-choice appeals are packaged in messaging that address a variety of themes. The result is a propaganda campaign that is strategically calibrated to leverage powerful psychosocial forces in its target audiences.

Tangled in the propaganda trap

It is soothing to believe that the appeal of IS propaganda is due to slick production, social media and extreme violence. But such views help reinforce misinterpretations of violent non-state political movements as comprised of only irrational actors driven by zeal and bloodlust.

If true, flashy pictures and gore delivered instantly over the internet would appeal to such savages. But this phenomenon is more complex, the reality more disturbing and the enemy more sophisticated than that.

As a member of the Syrian opposition warned me, IS uses propaganda to coax its enemies into misguided politico-military and strategic communications efforts. We keep getting snared in IS’s traps because the field has not developed a nuanced understanding of both the top-down strategic logic of extremist propaganda and the bottom-up dynamics of how audiences perceive and respond to such messaging.

Given the immense military and financial pressures IS is facing, expect it to rely increasingly on a fusion of asymmetric combat operations and targeted propaganda to sustain its slogan: remaining and expanding.

Some will take solace from these strategic shifts as indicators of a weakening IS. But, as last year proved, such changes do not necessarily mean IS’s appeal will diminish – nor that attacks like Paris or Jakarta will cease. The opposite may prove true.

Haroro J. Ingram, Research Fellow, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This one ingredient is making a lot of Americans fat

Berlin (AFP) - A Syrian suspected of being among jihadists who kidnapped a UN peacekeeper in Damascus in 2013 has been arrested over the "war crime", Germany's federal prosecutor said Friday.

The 24-year-old man named as Suliman A.S. is believed to be a member of a branch of the Al-Nusra Front jihadist group, the prosecutor said.

Investigations found that he had participated in the kidnapping on February 17, 2013 and was "involved in guarding the kidnapped victim between March and June 2013".

He is "suspected of an attack during Syria's civil war against a person, who was involved in a peacekeeping mission under the United Nations Charter, and was therefore entitled to protection," said the prosecutor.

"The arrest warrant against him is on suspicion of a war crime against a humanitarian operation," the prosecutor added.

The peacekeeper with the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights, whose nationality was not revealed, managed to free himself in October 2013. It was unclear why he had been in Damascus.

Two groups of UNDOF peacekeepers were also abducted in the same year in the Golan Heights ceasefire zone, the first comprising of 21 soldiers, and the second four. All were Filipinos and subsequently freed.

UNDOF, which has been in the Golan Heights since 1974, had about 1,000 troops and civilian staff in 2013. The 917 troops from Austria, India, the Philippines, Morocco and Moldova carried only very light arms.

In the wake of the spate of kidnappings, Austria withdrew its force over security reasons.

Join the conversation about this story »

BEIRUT (Reuters) — The Saudi-backed Syrian opposition ruled out even indirect negotiations with Damascus before steps including a halt to Russian air strikes, contradicting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's insistence that talks will begin next week.

With the five-year-old Syrian war showing no signs of ending, it looks increasingly uncertain that peace talks will begin as planned on Jan. 25 in Geneva, partly because of a dispute over the composition of the opposition delegation.

Peace efforts face huge underlying challenges, among them disagreements over President Bashar al-Assad's future and tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Russia on Friday denied a report that President Vladimir Putin had asked Assad to step down last year.

The Syrian government has said it is ready to take part in the Geneva talks on time. The office of U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said he was still aiming "at rolling out the talks" on Jan. 25, and would be "assessing progress over the weekend".

Russia said the talks could be delayed until Jan. 27 or 28 because of the disagreement over who would represent the opposition.

George Sabra, a senior opposition official, said the obstacles to the talks were still there, reiterating demands for the lifting of blockades on populated areas and the release of detainees, measures set out in a Dec. 18 Security Council resolution that endorsed the peace process.

"There must be a halt to the bombardment of civilians by Russian planes, and sieges of blockaded areas must be lifted," said Sabra, who was this week named as a senior member of the opposition delegation to any talks. "The form of the talks does not concern us, but the conditions must be appropriate for the negotiations," he told Reuters.

Sabra's opposition council, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), was formed in Saudi Arabia last month. It groups Assad's political and armed opponents, including rebel factions fighting Damascus in western Syria.

The west is the main theater of the war between rebels and Damascus, whose military position has been bolstered since September by Russian warplanes and Iranian ground forces.

Russian warplanes continued to bomb many parts of western and northern Syria on Friday, particularly Latakia province, where the government is pressing an offensive against rebels, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Pro-government forces captured a dam 10 km (6 miles) from the town of Salma, seized last week in one of the most significant gains since Russia intervened. "They've tightened their stranglehold on (rebel) fighters in the Latakia countryside," Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said.

Later in the day they recaptured another five villages, all in hills overlooking insurgent positions, he said, describing it as a "strategic advance" towards the Turkish border.

Air strikes also hit areas in the east near where government forces have been fighting against Islamic State, which controls most of the province. Raids believed to be either Russian or Syrian killed 30 civilians near Deir al-Zor city, the Observatory said.

Hijab to meet Kerry 

While rebels have received military support from Assad's foreign enemies, states including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar and the United States, their calls for more effective weapons including anti-aircraft missiles have gone unanswered.

One of the biggest rebel factions in the HNC, Jaysh al-Islam, said the opposition was facing "many pressures" to make concessions but credited Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar for helping it to "overcome these pressures".

The lead negotiator picked by the HNC for the hoped-for negotiations is a Jaysh al-Islam member, another potential complication facing the talks because Russia says it is a terrorist group.

HNC chair Riad Hijab is due to meet Kerry on Saturday and "all the matters will be tabled clearly", Sabra said.

A senior U.S. State Department official confirmed Kerry was likely to meet Hijab to "check the tires on the way forward (on talks)... that will hopefully kick off next week."

Russia views the HNC as a Saudi attempt to dictate who represents the opposition. The HNC has said it will not join any negotiations if a third party attends, rejecting Russia's bid to expand the opposition delegation to include the Kurdish PYD and others.

The Kurds control vast areas of northern and northeastern Syria where they have set up an autonomous administration which they say should be a model for settling the Syrian conflict.

The opposition accuses the Kurds of cooperating with Damascus, a charge they deny. One opposition official said on Thursday the Kurds should attend on the government side.

Syrian Kurdish leader Saleh Muslim told Reuters that the Syrian Kurds must be represented at peace talks or they will fail. He also accused Jaysh al-Islam of fostering the "same mentality" as al Qaeda and Islamic State.

"If there are some parties that are effective in this Syria issue who are not at the table, it will be the same as what happened in Geneva 2," Muslim, co-chair of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) told Reuters, referring to failed negotiations in 2014.

Jaysh al-Islam last year backed away from hardline Islamist rhetoric heard from it earlier in the conflict, saying Syrians should be free to pick their form of government and Alawites were part of the Syrian nation.

The Kremlin on Friday rejected a report that an envoy for Putin asked Assad to step down last year, TASS news agency reported.

The Financial Times had earlier reported that the head of Russian military intelligence agency traveled to Damascus at the end of last year to ask Assad to step down only to be angrily rebuffed.

(Additional reporting by John Davision in Beirut, John Irish in Paris, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and David Brunnstrom in Zurich; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Bombshell report claims Putin 'probably approved' the murder of one of his most outspoken critics

On Wednesday, the US, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Australia and The Netherlands renewed pledges to support the US-led international coalition fight against ISIS.

Established by US Central Command in October 2014, the Combined Joint Task Force's Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) is responsible for executing 9,782 air strikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

In the slides below, see how nations around have come together to confront ISIS.

SEE ALSO: US military releases footage of airstrikes pounding an ISIS financial headquarters

This map marks in blue countries nations involved in OIR.

Here are some of the nations in the US-led coalition:

Source

The US alone has carried out the wide majority of air strikes against ISIS with 7,390 strikes in Iraq (4,361) and Syria (3,029).

Source

According to the Defense Department, the US spends $11 million per day, a total of $5.5 billion since the air war began in August 2014.

Source