ISIS Loses Territory: Turning the Tide

According to Pentagon officials, the United States’ offensive against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) shows signs of gaining momentum and regaining territory from the terror group.ISIS’ recent defeats include the city of Manbij, which was liberated last week, and the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was captured by Iraqi Army forces in June.The Islamic State also lost Ramadi last year after a four-month battle with Iraqi Special Operation forces. Kurdish military are currently fighting near Mosul, the last and largest stronghold of ISIS in Iraq.The United States military’s secret “Expeditionary Targeting Force” has increased its pace of operations in recent weeks due to increased intelligence on key ISIS leaders it is trying to kill or capture.

ISIS Loses Cities, Territory in Iraq, Syria

Recapturing the strategic city of Manbij, Syria, enabled the Syrian Democratic Forces to cut lines of communications and slow the flow of foreign fighters into ISIS territory.A large convoy of ISIS fighters, spotted leaving the city, was allowed to travel without being bombed by U.S. planes due to the prevalence of civilians in the convoy. Striking the vehicles would have produced avoidable civilian casualties.“We have repeatedly mentioned the care that our partnered (Syrian) forces were taking to avoid civilian casualties…so the partnered forces on the ground did not engage the convoy,” said U.S. military spokesman Col. Christopher Garver in Iraq.Manbij was a key city to the Islamic State. After losing it, ISIS began reinforcing Raqqa with booby traps, including explosives, protective berms and trenches filled with tires to be used as smokescreens.U.S. officials say that coalition forces have killed 45,000 ISIS fighters since the beginning of operations in 2014. Of those, 25,000 have been killed since September of 2015.ISIS’ ideology has inspired terrorism around the world. CNN estimates that the over 140 terrorist attacks in 29 countries have killed at least 2,043 people.