GRIM FORECAST – AT 10:02 A.M. ET:  The ranks of ISIS are growing, and are filling with Europeans.  From the Jerusalem Post:   

Europeans swelling the Islamic State group's ranks could reach 10,000 by the end of 2015, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls suggested on Sunday in an interview with French television, AFP reported Sunday.

"There are 3,000 Europeans in Iraq and Syria today. When you do a projection for the months to come, there could be 5,000 before summer and 10,000 before the end of the year," Valls warned, addressing the near three-fold increase of foreign born Islamic State militants.

"Do you realize the threat this represents?" he asked. "There have already been nearly 90 French people who have died out there with a weapon in their hand, fighting against our own values."

Different organizations have provided various estimates of how many fighters have joined the Islamic State and other groups like it.

According to the Tel-Aviv-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, approximately between 6,000 and 7,000 fighters have traveled to Syria alone in order to fight the Assad regime. Meanwhile, the US State Department has suggested that as many as 20,000 fighters from one hundred different countries have passed through both Syria and Iraq.

COMMENT:  This recruiting will only stop when ISIS is handily defeated, and potential recruits realize it's a losing cause.  No one wants to join a losing cause.  But how do you win when "victory" is a dirty word in the Obama administration?

March 8, 2015