Thomas Wictor

For most of the history of warfare, the combatants lined up on opposite sides of a field or tract of water and advanced. When they met, they bashed each other as hard as they could until somebody gave up. This approach changed in World War I. Instead of marching on strong points, armies sent in small units of heavily armed specialists who completely bypassed machine-gun nests, bunkers, and pillboxes. “Shock troops” ran to the enemy’s rear, leaving the second and third wave to take on the fortifications in the front line. In World War II the Allies made this tactic into a strategy called island hopping, and now Israel has amplified it into a geostrategy that leapfrogs entire nations.

When you bypass a strong point, you can either attack it later or let it wither from lack of supplies. I’ll tell you in a moment what I think the Israeli choice will be.

Here’s how I know what the Israelis have done: The Yemen war. Officially the Coalition consists of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Senegal, and Sudan. However, Pakistan is also fighting in Yemen, though the nation denies it. Pakistan is using unmanned aerial vehicles, naval warships, and commandos.

Malaysia is there, with special desert-camouflaged AgustaWestland AW109 helicopters.

Yesterday I discovered that Mauritania has sent a battalion of troops, and today I learned that Eritrea has as well. The latter unit has to be a battalion of commandos, since they’re embedded with the United Arab Emirates. The UAE Presidential Guard are among the best warriors on earth.

It’s absolutely clear to me that every nation fighting in Yemen has made peace with Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu has said so in unambiguous language.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Israel is working closely with our Arab peace partners to address our common security challenges from Iran and also the security challenges from ISIS and from others. We are also working with other states in the Middle East as well as countries in Africa, in Asia and beyond.

Many of these countries don’t even recognize the existence of Israel, but there’s one thing they all have in common: They’re terrified of jihadist insurgencies. Who knows best how to defeat jihadists? Who isn’t crippled by tribalism? Who doesn’t believe in vendettas?

The US has trained untold African special operators. One of the US military’s unified combatant commands is AFRICOM; every year AFRICOM has Exercise Flintlock.

Chad announced it will host the Flintlock 2015 exercise, U.S. Africa Command’s premier Special Operations Forces exercise, which will kick off Feb. 16, 2015 in the capital N’Djamena with outstations in Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Tunisia, and will run through March 9, 2015…

Conducted by Special Operations Command Forward – West Africa, Flintlock is a joint, combined multinational exercise to improve information sharing at the operational and tactical levels across the Saharan region while fostering increased collaboration and coordination. Its focus is military interoperability and capacity-building among African, Western and U.S. counterterrorism forces.

Over 1,200 personnel will be involved in Chad-hosted Flintlock ‘15, with outstations in Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Tunisia. Participants are from Burkina Faso, Denmark, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mauritania, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Senegal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mali, Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania and the United States.

There’s no way that Israel would be excluded. Trust me.

Currently the Multinational Joint Task Force is fighting Islamic State affiliate Boko Haram in Nigeria. The troops are from Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria. These are nations that had no real love for each other, but they’ve done an amazing job.

Major-General Yushau Abubakar, Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, says the military will capture Sambisa forest, den of the Boko Haram terrorists, before the December presidential deadline.

He said the military had recorded lots of successes in its anti terrorism campaign, adding: “We have achieved a lot and we are still doing much, but you know that the job is still there until we finish it. We are very close to Sambisa, we must enter and capture the forest before the Presidential deadline.”

He said the main target was to end terrorism and terrorists activities in the country. “Our major concern is that we must fight Boko Haram to a standstill and ensure that we eliminate them,” he said.

The theatre commander expressed happiness with the troops’ performance, so far, noting: “I am happy that we are progressing very well, we have not reached the promised land but we are making progress. We are making efforts to clear all Boko Haram terrorists camps.”

How lethal was Boko Haram?

The Inspector General of Police, IGP Solomon Arase has disclosed that an estimated 90,000 police officers lost their lives since Boko Haram insurgency started four years ago.

Arase made this known to journalists shortly after addressing men and officers at the police command headquarters in Sokoto, the Sokoto State capital.

Revealing that the police had a record of about 90,000 widows who lost their husbands since the insurgency began in the North-east, he stressed that the Nigeria Police Force had initiated a scheme to cater for the family of officers who lost their lives while on duty in the North-east.

Can you really grasp the figure of 90,000 police officers killed? In the past four years, about 500 police officers have died on the job in gun-crazy America. Our population is almost twice that of Nigeria.

So, about 8700 African troops have routed Boko Haram. We know that the Cameroonian Bataillon d’ Intervention Rapide (BIR) is trained by the IDF.

I have no doubt that Israel is training most of the other African states fighting jihadism. If the US is training them, so is Israel.

We know that the Arab air forces in Yemen are using Israeli technology. Israel began selling weapons to Arab nations in 2009. Haaretz is all morally outraged, but that’s just stupid. Nobody except Iran actually wants Israel wiped off the map.

On Friday morning, activists from BDS Norway staged an intifada against leading arms producer Nammo Raufoss AS, in eastern Norway. In a symbolic demonstration, the activists protested against the Norwegian direct and indirect arms trade with Israel.

In the Israeli arsenal, there are weapons, ammunition and weapons components produced by Nammo AS or Nammo Talley, a subsidiary of Nammo AS in the United States.

Although there are Norwegian laws prohibiting direct arms sales to Israel, Norwegian weapons are sold from the Nammo Group through its subsidiary in the United States, Nammo Talley… The Nammo Group is a state-owned company. Therefore, this is a Norwegian political responsibility.

BDS Norway also took action against Nammo AS in August 2014. BDS has resolved to continue demonstrating until Norwegian authorities change both practice and legislation, so that the arms trade and collaboration with Israel ceases.

Norway selling arms to Israel? AM I LIVING IN A NIGHTMARE?

No. It’s just the real world, in which Israel has made herself indispensable. It was island hopping. Israel bypassed the strong points and sent her shock troops to the rear sector of every nation on earth. When even the grim, finger-wagging Norwegians are only paying lip service to anti-Israel sentiment, it means that the war is won. All that’s left is the mopping up.

So what happens to the bypassed strong points? Well, in the French army of World War I, they used nettoyeurs. “Cleaners.” How did French cleaners make everything dirt-free and sparkling? They had four cleaning implements.

Dynamite.

Hand grenades.

Flamethrowers.

And the bidon incendiaire.

The incendiary can. It was full of coal oil and petroleum. A fuse in the handle gave the cleaner five seconds to throw the thing down into a bunker, where it exploded and doused the occupants in flames.

Though Israel has island hopped in order to spare the lives of her own people and others, the remaining strong points will almost certainly have to be cleaned.

French style.