| Then there are however many the Russians and Syrians dropped bombs on, and however many ran into the bullets of the Kurds and their allies, not to mention the other Syrian rebel groups and Hizb'allah. N=lots, a lovely equation testifying to the improvement of the shallow end of the gene pool. |
[AnNahar] Around 22,000 jihadists have been killed by the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group since mid-2014, La Belle France's defense minister said on Thursday.
"The figure given by the coalition... is about 22,000 dead since the start of operations in Iraq and Syria," Jean-Yves Le Drian told the La Belle France24 news channel, adding that the figure was "approximate."
...whatever that means.
And for a shorter-term perspective from Rudaw: |
US: Death of thousands of ISIS militants in three months has weakened the group
The United States-led coalition has killed over 6,400 members of the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group according to its own statistics.
The intensified air strikes coupled with ground offensives against ISIS by other rebel groups have lead US commanders to argue that the group is gradually being weakened decisively.
"We are noticing that they are not quite the same skill level that they once were," a top coalition commander, Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, told USA Today. "Maybe they're having trouble replacing quality with quality."
Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland explained that more ISIS members are defecting and the group has failed to mount any offensives to make-up for its recent losses on the battlefield. "We take that as a positive indicator that we're starting to hit them where it hurts," he remarked.
Coalition statistics indicate that on average 500 ISIS members have been killed a week over the course of the last three months. Since the campaign started a year-and-a-half ago about 25,000 members of ISIS are believed to have been killed by coalition air strikes. |