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US-Russia cooperation needed in IS fight

The United States should reconsider its harsh rhetoric toward Russia, as the two countries could constructively cooperate in the fight against the Islamic State.
A man holds up a knife as he rides on the back of a motorcycle touring the streets of Tabqa city with others in celebration after Islamic State militants took over Tabqa air base, in nearby Raqqa city August 24, 2014. Islamic State militants stormed the air base in northeast Syria on Sunday, capturing most of it from government forces after days of fighting over the strategic location, a witness and a monitoring group said. Fighting raged inside the walls of the Tabqa air base, the Syrian army's last footho
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Fear, in its various forms, has always been at the root of the most tragic events in the history of humankind. Nowadays, fear of the onset of the bloody Islamic State (IS) and the spread of Ebola are having a tremendous impact on the behavior of global and regional players. It is fear that seemingly binds together these two otherwise unconnected threats. According to Jonathan Freedland, "[IS] feeds Ebola, and Ebola feeds [IS] — and our fear feeds them both."

The fight against IS has combined into one its military, oil, economic and financial components. It has already become a familiar argument that airstrikes alone cannot defeat these fanatic hangmen. And as they are suffering heavy losses, if they mix among the local population, most of the casualties of the airstrikes will be civilians, which will serve to dramatically increase the number of supporters of the jihadists. Perhaps with this in mind, the US command has kept the number of sorties on Iraqi and Syrian territory fairly low. According to media reports, over the weekend of Oct. 18-19 there were only a couple of dozen sorties, whereas during the campaign against Serbia in 1999 there were 138 daily. During Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in 1991 there were an average of 1,100 strikes every single day.

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