OTTUMWA, IA—Vowing to hunt down and destroy every last vestige of the extremist group, Senator Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that his presidential campaign was deploying 6,000 ground troops to the Middle East to combat ISIS militants. “ISIS has shown that it has no respect for the sanctity of human life, which is why this campaign has dispatched troops to Syria to begin a full-scale ground assault against these terrorists,” said the candidate ahead of a voter meet-and-greet at an Iowa senior center, noting that the troop deployment was merely the latest phase of a multi-pronged strategy by the Rubio 2016 campaign that began with the arming of Kurdish militias shortly before the second GOP primary debate. “In addition, the campaign has already launched coordinated missile strikes against ISIS strongholds from our destroyer, the USS New American Century, stationed in the Persian Gulf. And the Conservative Solutions super PAC has pledged additional air support to halt the advance of jihadist militants in northern Iraq. We will show these terrorists that they can’t hide from the next president of the United States.” At press time, a Rubio campaign airstrike intended for ISIS had accidentally hit a group of Ted Cruz loyalist fighters outside Tikrit.

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