U.S. officials are apparently tired of ISIS militants and convoys being portrayed by the media as having significant strength and marching fearlessly forward against their enemies.
So, the Pentagon has issued a directive to the media, asking them to stop using old footage and pictures of ISIS militants and convoys that often showcases the Islamic terrorist army victoriously marching along toward their next inevitable conquest, reports FOX News .
As in the picture above for this story, the majority of ISIS footage used by the media, and that the Pentagon is tired of seeing, shows ISIS militants fearlessly marching in force, their black flags held high by ISIS militants clad in intimidating black uniforms and masks. Large columns of ISIS military vehicles boldly heading across the desert is another image that the Pentagon says is more outdated myth than reality.
Outdated because the only pictures and images the media has of ISIS and their military on the move, are from last year, before U.S.-led airstrikes began and ISIS began suffering some major military blows. Since then, the media has either very little or no access to the current ISIS battlegrounds making any new ISIS footage and pictures scant.
State Department official Emily Horne, who is leading the international coalition against ISIS, explained the situation to Politico , calling the continued media use of bold ISIS photos “inaccurate.”
“We are urging broadcasters to avoid using the familiar B-roll that we’ve all seen before, file footage of (ISIS) convoys operating in broad daylight, moving in large formations with guns out, looking to wreak havoc. It’s inaccurate — that’s no longer how (ISIS) moves. A lot of that footage is from last summer before we began tactical strikes.”
Horne also pointed out that the media’s use of such outdated images, showing ISIS at full strength, also helps the terrorist group’s recruitment efforts, making joining the ISIS ranks look a lot more attractive than it is in reality.
According to the Pentagon, that reality has become a lot more stark for ISIS militants and the movements of their army, theirs days of huge ISIS military columns storming across the desert uncontested a faded memory.
A more accurate description of current ISIS military movements might be,”One Toyota speeding down the road by itself at night with its headlights off,” said Col. Steven Warren, a spokesman for the Pentagon.
A former U.S. military adviser in Iraq, Rick Brennan, says that while the Pentagon is right that the coalition has hampered ISIS’s ability to move, ISIS is still a formidable force.
“Before the summer offensive of 2014, ISIS was moving in large columns which were extremely easy targets to hit. But as a result of the successful airstrikes, they have broken down and are moving as an insurgency under the cover of darkness… We have complicated their ability to move, on the level of being able to move rapidly and reinforce rapidly, they are no longer able to do that. But their ability to hold terrain has not diminished.”
So despite the Pentagon claim that ISIS is no longer realistically represented by the outdated images often used by the media, the group appears to have adjusted, which is reflected by ISIS currently controlling huge swaths of northern Iraq and Syria, as well as the the key Iraqi city of Mosul.
ISIS is also currently threatening to overrun Ramadi, another key Iraqi city that is only 70 miles west of Baghdad. So despite what the Pentagon says, these facts paint a picture equally dire to any outdated images of ISIS used by the media.
[Image via FOX News]