Great post! What constitutes a regular army in a “state” such as ISIL/ISIS?
Boots on the ground would answer a lot of these questions. I’m no soldier, but I would think battlefield observations would go pretty far to get some solid answers.
Maybe the Jordanians will tell us.
Here’s some unofficial intel. I regularly visit my local convenience store (its a cliche, but whatever), and have made acquaintance with a Jordanian working at the store and living here in the states to get his accounting degree. He happens to be from a town on the Syrian border and his relatives are telling him that 10,000 Jordanian troops are massed there ready to cross the border and attack. I know they’ve had a military presence on the border with Syria and have had clashes there, but apparently the troop strength has increased significantly in the past week.
It’s sort of like asking what is the military strength of U.S. ground forces / infantry?
Is it just active duty Army and Marines? Add in Reserves and National Guard? Add in anyone who is a former member of same? Add in anyone in the unorganized militia who owns an AR or AK or similar, and has run a few hundred rounds through it?
I don’t know how accurate this is, but it’s an amazing claim:
http://nypost.com/2015/02/09/isis-head-on-the-run-frightened-for-his-life/
It says Jordan claims to have killed 7,000 ISIS combatants over the weekend.