Digging In

Bill Roggio and Caleb Weiss write, at The Long War Journal, that:

Since the Syrian civil war began in the spring of 2011, the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and other allied jihadist groups have operated more than 30 training camps inside Iraq and Syria. While global jihadist groups have primarily used camps to indoctrinate and train fighters for local insurgencies as part of the effort to establish a global caliphate, in the past al Qaeda has used its camps to support attacks against the West.

And:

US officials clearly view the camps in Iraq and Syria as a direct threat to US national security. US and allied countries have targeted this network of training camps in Iraq and Syria in air and cruise missile strikes.

The enemy assumes a state of war that will last for … who knows?  Until they win, according to their view of how history will unfold.  Or until we destroy them utterly, as it seems increasingly clear we must.  Military planners are now saying that:

 U.S. airstrikes and Iraqi ground forces have blunted an Islamic State offensive in Iraq, but it will be months before Iraq can mount a sustained counteroffensive to take terrain back

This, according to “a senior U.S. military official” quoted by Jim Michaels in USA Today.