Hagel Says ISIL Threats Real, Must Be Dealt With

By Jim Garamone
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18, 2014 - The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant poses a real threat to the countries of the Middle East and perhaps to Europe and the United States, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the House Armed Services Committee today.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel testifies on U.S. policy regarding the threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL, before the House Armed Services Committee in Washington, D.C., Sept. 18, 2014. DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Daniel Hinton (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

Hagel thanked the committee for its work in passing the bill to authorize actions against ISIL that provide $500 million to train and equip moderate Syrian forces. The bill goes to the Senate today.
The terror organization must be confronted and destroyed, Hagel said. He charted the terror group's recent history to show how this threat emerged.
"In the last few months, the world has seen ISIL's barbarity up close as its fighters advanced across western and northern Iraq and slaughtered thousands of innocent civilians, including Sunni and Shia Muslims and Kurdish Iraqis and all religious minorities who stood in their way," Hagel said.
The group filmed the beheading of two American reporters, and over the weekend beheaded a British journalist.
"ISIL now controls a vast swath of eastern Syria and western and northern Iraq, including towns and cities in these areas," the secretary said. The group has taken advantage of the Syrian civil war, he added, and has turned it into a sectarian jihad.
A violent combination of tactics
And as it advanced, ISIL took weapons and supplies from defeated foes, Hagel said. "As it has seized territory across both countries and acquired significant resources and advanced weapons, ISIL has employed a violent combination of terrorist, insurgent and conventional military tactics," he told the panel.
The world has not seen a terror group act this way, the secretary said, noting that the group also fights a cyberwar "employing technology and social media, employing this to increase its global profile and attract tens of thousands of fighters."
The goal of the group is to re-establish the Caliphate and spread it from Syria across the Middle East, Hagel said. "It considers itself the rightful inheritor of Osama bin Laden's legacy," he added.
ISIL is a threat to the Middle East now, but thousands of foreign fighters have joined the terror group, and they are potential time bombs that can be planted in Europe and North America, Hagel said. These Europeans and Americans are citizens of their respective countries, and have passports that give them relative freedom of movement, he noted. They can use the ISIL safe haven in Syria to plan, coordinate and carry out attacks against the United States and Europe, he said.
Hagel stressed there is no information indicating such a plot exists, but that ISIL clearly has global aspirations. "And, as President Obama has made clear, ISIL's leaders have threatened America and our allies," he said. "If left unchecked, ISIL will directly threaten our homeland and our allies."