Senator John McCain has allegedly "derailed" Washington's campaign to tackle Daesh, also known as ISIL, Gordon Duff, a Vietnam War combat veteran, wrote for New Eastern Outlook.

The US hawk and other hardliners "have placed a 'political shield' over terrorist targets in Iraq and Syria," he claimed. McCain, according to Duff, coordinated these efforts with Turkish, Israeli and Saudi intelligence.

The "derailing," according to the US veteran, boils down to preventing US pilots engaged in counterterrorism efforts in Iraq and Syria from hitting actual militant targets.

Duff cited unnamed American military pilots in the region as saying that "they have flown over oil tanker convoys 4 lanes wide at times and been told to stay silent." They also allegedly saw "mysterious aircraft dropping supplies" for Daesh and al-Nusra Front.

"The most common report, however, is massive parking lots filled with hundreds, even thousands of Humvees, Abrams tanks, artillery pieces, support vehicles of all kinds, all 'hands off' at the orders of the Pentagon," Duff asserted. "Some pilots are totally dispirited from seeing the same 'fat targets' over and over while they are sent after road checkpoints or abandoned buildings."

© AP Photo / Marko Drobnjakovic Pilots onboard of the US Marine fighter jet aircrafthave flown missions into both Iraq and Syria, part of the over 6,800 airstrikes carried out since August 2014.

Daesh and al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's offshoot in Syria, are the main terrorist groups, which have been trying to oust Bashar al-Assad and establish an Islamic State in the war-torn country. Although the US launched an aerial operation against Daesh in mid-2014, the group still holds a firm grip over large territories under its control.

"McCain, chairman of the powerful Senator Armed Services Committee, has strangled America's efforts to the point where there are no sufficient munitions available. America is flying operations over Syria and Iraq with the aging F 16 recently upgraded for improved all weather capability using typical payloads of World War II era iron bombs," Duff observed.

Duff added that Rockwell B-1 Lancer and B-52 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers stationed at the US airbase in Qatar are not allowed to take part in the anti-Daesh operation.

The fact "that Russia, within weeks, was able to destroy hundreds of 'fat targets,' command centers, fuel and ammunition depots, equipment storage facilities and training camps, most of which had been “up and running” through the entire coalition bombing campaign but untouched, speaks volumes as to the truth of reports by American pilots of 'hands off' orders," Duff noted.