U.S., allies expand bombing to Aleppo, Syria's largest city

The U.S. and its allies began last night bombing ISIS targets in Syria. This morning, they've expanded the raid to include Syria's largest city, Aleppo, as word comes down that an attack by ISIS on targets in the U.S. or Europe is imminent.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

A total of eight U.S. air attacks carried out in Syria’s largest city were aimed at the "Khorasan Group," described in a U.S. Central Command statement as an organization of Al Qaeda veterans. The Aleppo campaign marked an expansion of the bombing effort launched initially against strongholds of Islamic State in eastern Syria, conducted by U.S. planes, drones and ships with the help of five Arab nations. The strikes indicate that the U.S. air campaign in Syria has broader objectives than going after the Islamic State, the target of the attacks in eastern Syria. The bombing west of Aleppo, about 100 miles northeast of the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqah, was intended “to disrupt the imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests conducted by a network of seasoned Al Qaeda veterans - sometimes referred to as the Khorasan Group - who have established a safe haven in Syria,” the command said in a statement.A senior military officer, briefed on the Aleppo attacks, said intelligence reports suggested the group “was nearing the execution phase of an attack in Europe or the U.S.” He said he did know more details about the attack the group was said to be preparing.

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I guess we don't know what details he knows, such as whether it's in the U.S. or Europe. Maybe he only knows the nature of the planned attack but not the target. You have to wonder if it's similar to what we heard from Australia last week, where ISIS was reportedly looking to snatch a random person off the street and behead them with (of course) cameras rolling. Euronews reports that other nations involved in the bombing include Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Bahrain. It might be awhile, if ever, before we learn concrete measurements of what this Syria bombing raid is accomplishing. I'm not sure how you count terrorists killed in a bombing raid where you don't put boots on the ground. That doesn't mean they shouldn't do it but to bomb by air alone seems to leave you with an awfully murky sense of whether you achieved your strategic objective. In the meantime, if ISIS is really planning attacks in the U.S. and the federal government knows about it, I wonder if Americans are ready for the pre-emptive measures that might be necessary to stop the attack, after more than a decade of hysterical drama queens screaming in our ears that such measures are violating our civil liberties - the very same hysterical drama queens who are now in the White House.