Buried in Sunday's news was the announcement that the U.S. military has begun a "major military" offensive in Raqqa, Syria, the self-declared capital of ISIS.
Approximately 30,000 fighters will participate in the U.S.-led operation. The group expected to carry out the bulk of the fighting is the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or the YPG. The YPG is the military extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group that is on the U.S. terrorism list.
(It is not known if U.S. officials were asked about the duplicity of declaring the PKK a terrorist group while at the same time working with them in the region.)
The U.S. will first attempt to seal off Raqqa before venturing into the city itself -- actions that government officials say will not be completed prior to Barack Obama leaving office.
"We always advertised that the isolation phase (of Raqqa) is going to take months," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford was quoted as saying on Sunday.
The announcement paves the way for Hillary Clinton to declare a no-fly zone in northeastern Syria upon entering the Oval Office.
A no-fly zone would "require us to go to war against Syria and Russia," Danford told the Senate in September.
In discussing no-fly zones on Friday, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said, "for us to declare a no-fly zone means get ready for war with Russia." In a separate interview, Stein said, "this is a mushroom cloud waiting to happen."
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