That figure alone would represent a sizeable chunk – nearly 46 percent – of the approximately 250 Americans who, according to USA law enforcement officials and the intelligence community, have sought to take part in the overall conflict.
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“And the enemy doesn’t put up as much of a fight”, he told Pentagon reporters in a video conference.
MacFarland also said he was confident that the turmoil in Turkey following the attempted coup last month would not impact the campaign against ISIS in Syria or operations against ISIS out of the USA airbase at Incirlik in southeastern Turkey.
“We don’t see them operating almost as effectively as they have in the past, which makes them even easier targets for us”, MacFarland said.
A disturbing tidbit from the ISD report cited by The Hill: While roughly a third of foreign recruits are fighting with the Kurdish YPG in Syria, and another 20 percent with the Kurdish peshmerga in Iraq, there are also a “handful” of foreigners fighting with unsavory groups like Hezbollah and Shiite militia units.
The Mosul campaign could begin as soon as September, Iraqi and Kurdish officials told The Washington Times earlier this month.
“Our approach is paying off”. Hodge says he was given two weeks of training before being sent to the front lines. “The more intelligence we have, the more effectively we’ll be able to develop targets”. The findings underscore everything we know about the Islamic State’ brutal methods and harsh governance in the areas of Syria and Iraq it controls. “In other words, we spend more time thinking about what we will do to the enemy than we spend thinking about what the enemy might do to us”.
The Islamic State has lost about 40% of territory in Iraq it held at its peak previous year.
“We have helped the Afghan Security Forces to reclaim significant portions of the territory that was previously controlled by Daesh. The Iraqi security forces around Qayyarah”, where USA forces are building up a logistics and fire support base, “are in a position now to begin that process and we’ll try to hurry that along as fast as we possibly can but putting an exact time on it, I’d rather not”. “Others questioned whether the Kurds would cooperate with Arab forces to fight [ISIL] beyond their own traditional region”, he said.
Those deep-rooted, largely ethnic and religious grievances could be on full display within months if US -backed Iraqi forces are able to retake and hold Mosul as expected.
“Daesh is finished. The town will be liberated in the coming hours”, SDF fighter Ibrahim al-Hussein says, using the Arabic acronym for the group. The two sites stand south of Mosul-the largest ISIS stronghold and the third largest city in Iraq by population.
“We want to conduct the campaign to liberate Mosul in a way that leaves the city largely intact and its people in good health”, MacFarland said.
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Lt. -Gen. MacFarland said estimates for the overall remaining strength of IS vary from about 15,000 to 30,000 but he noted the jihadists are having increasing difficulties replenishing their ranks.
