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| Iraq |
| ISIS Has Lost 25 Percent of Territory It Once Held in Iraq, US Says |
| 2015-03-15 |
| [ABCNEWS.GO] Iraqi and Kurdish forces have reclaimed more than 25 percent of ISIS-held territory inside Iraq, according to a U.S. assessment that also determined that Kurdish fighters are responsible for the majority of the territory retaken from ISIS in northern Iraq. "We assess ISIL's front lines have been pushed back in northern and central Iraq," Pentagon front man Col. Steve Warren said at a Pentagon briefing today, referring to the murderous Moslem group also known as ISIS. "ISIL no longer has complete freedom of movement in roughly 25 percent of populated areas of Iraqi territory where they once operated freely." The recaptured areas represent an area between 4,100 and 5,200 square miles or 11,000 and 13,500 square kilometers, Warren said. At its peak, ISIS was in control of 55,000 square kilometers in northern and western Iraq, Pentagon officials said. "ISIL lost large areas where it was once dominant in the governance of Babil, Diyala, Nineveh, Salahadin and Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... " Warren said. Warren said the term "freedom of movement" equates to losing territory "if they don't have freedom of movement they don't control it." I The assessment that 25 percent has been recaptured is a significant increase from previous assessments released in January that Iraqi and Kurdish security forces had retaken 700 square kilometers. "Their caliphate is in the process of shrinking," Warren told news hounds, noting that areas represented in the assessment were of populated areas that had been taken from ISIS control. But he cautioned that the assessment was "not an exact science," pointing to what he described as the "fluid battleground" inside Iraq. |
| Posted by:Fred |