Why Airstrikes are a Trap but Here’s How We Defeat ISIS
By Susanne PoselFrench journalist Nicolas Hénin ,
who was held captive by the Islamic State (IS) for 10 months, has a
plan on how to defeat the terrorist group based on his time with the
radicals.
This journalist was released with other French hostages in April of
last year. Hénin was held along with James Foley, Steven Sotloff, David
Haines and Alan Henning who were all beheaded by Mohammed Emwazi , a.k.a. Jihad John.
Hénin spoke with The Syrian Campaign , revealing a new way of looking at the air strikes on IS.
He said: “Strikes on ISIS are a trap. The winner of this war will not
be the parties that have the newest, most expensive, most sophisticated
weaponry, but the party that manages to have the people on its side.”
Because of the bombings, the US, Russia and the French governments “are more likely pushing the people
into the hands of ISIS. What we have to do, and this is really key, we
have to engage the local people. As soon as the people have hope in the
political solution, then Islamic State will just collapse. It will have
no ground any more. It will collapse.”
Hénin explained that IS members live in a “different matrix” than the
rest of us because of their deeply held religious belief in a “mad
prophecy” that there will be a coalition of “80 armies against an army
of Muslims coming from all over the world” to fight in a global jihad.
The only way to beat IS is to understand that the bombing campaigns
“are just fueling our enemies, and fueling the misery” of the Syrian
people.
