Tank Slap - Motorcycle Forum

Former editor of Superbike magazine is the man currently being held and displayed by IS in Syria.

How very sad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29258201" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Gutting, I've been reading his stuff for years, he did a lot of computer games writing as well as Superbike and I think two wheels only too... He was kidnapped in 2012 too, I don't think I'd have gone back after that...

I do hope he doesn't lose his head

What a world we are living in, eh?

I don't think we are going to stop these barbarians unless we go in with ground troops

i think there is more to this storey than is being let on, he's a clever man.

Perkles wrote:I don't think we are going to stop these barbarians unless we go in with ground troops

We've been trying that for years and it just ends up producing more terrorists.

duke63 wrote:

Perkles wrote:I don't think we are going to stop these barbarians unless we go in with ground troops

We've been trying that for years and it just ends up producing more terrorists.

What's the solution then?

Fighting them will achieve nothing other than making the problem worse. Our politicians have been making us fight them for more than 20 years and the problem has only got worse.

You have to try and make the real people of these lands shun the extremists element.

It can be done. Look at Ireland.

You can't compare the IRA to ISIS. ISIS are executing people for the sake of trying to create a new land. Their tactics are wholly different, as is the reasons for their actions. These nut jobs are doing it in the name of religion but are still killing people from the same religion.

We do need boots on the ground, but not ours. It's got to be dealt with locally with outside assistance from the West in terms of support, not troops.

Seems exactly the same to me.

Didn't the IRA execute people for the same reason? To create a united self-governed Ireland?

They were still killing their own people for that end.

I think ground troops would stop the immediate threat,I can't see how bombing will stop them

Bombs destroy the machines they rely on, disrupt the supply lines and take out shelter. It also slows down any advances as it makes ISIS more cautious about moving in the open. In addition bombing has been shown to be a very effective psychological weapon, it harms morale as well.

Local people are not strong enough or disciplined enough even with western support and hardware to fight Isis they are too strong, established and organised.

I don't have an answer and agree sending our troops in is not the answer but the locals can't resolve it either so god knows what the correct solution is but one things for sure the problem is not going to go away. I just hope it doesn't get worse and western goverments get drawn in and find themselves too far down the track to turn round and it then escalates out of control.

We've got military advisers on the ground helping the local militants and the regular armies.

There are countries near by with very large and effective armies who are willing to help. What we have to watch out for is Israels reaction. They have already been provided by those fighting in Syria as well as ISIS provocation. We need them to stay out of it.

As i understand it, IS is being funded partly by Syria and partly by other Arab states.

Its nothing to do with us so we should stay out.

They have British hostages it has everything to do with us

ISIS is being funded by taking hostages and demanding ransom, which some countries are paying. It also has funding from places like Saudi Arabia, which we support

ISIS has come about following the collapse of Iraq.

There was a good article in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks back saying how President Assad in Syria was allowing IS to take over part of his country, including buying oil from them for an oil field they had taken over. He has also released some of the top IS prisoners his army had taken.

His thinking is that eventually the US and UK would side with him to defeat IS and he could carry on in power in his country.