Terrorism: US claims more than 6,000 ISIS killed

From Homeland Security News Wire:

U.S. officials: 6,000 ISIS fighters and “more than half” of the group’s leadership killed


23 January 2015


The U.S.-led airstrikes campaign has “taken more than half” of the Islamic State’s (ISIS) leadership, U.S. ambassador to Iraq Stuart Jones said. Jones said the airstrikes were having a “devastating” effect on ISIS. “We estimate that the airstrikes have now killed more than 6,000 ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq,” Jones said. He added that the airstrikes have “destroyed more than a thousand of ISIS vehicles inside Iraq.”


The ambassador noted that the numbers were “not so important in themselves,” but that “they do show the degradation of ISIS.”

“They show ISIS inability to supply forces inside Iraq,” he said.

CNN reports that the estimate used by the ambassador was calculated by U.S. Central Command, according to a U.S. military official.

As is the case with any military command, CENTCOM has been keeping a running estimate of ISIS fighters killed, but has not made this estimate public.

The U.S. intelligence community estimates that ISIS forces total between 9,000 to 18,000 fighters, but that the Islamist group can also draw on thousands of other fighters whose loyalty to the group is not as intense, bringing the force it could muster to around 31,000 fighters...

Much more detail here.

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