US: 2,500 Daesh militants killed in Iraq, Syria

WASHINGTON

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Daesh said Wednesday that about 2,500 Daesh fighters were killed in Iraq and Syria last month.

The Pentagon has long declined to provide information on the number of militants killed but Col. Steve Warren released figures about operations that portrayed militants as being on the defensive.

"In December, we estimate approximately 2,500 enemy fighters were killed in coalition airstrikes across Iraq and Syria," the Baghdad-based Warren told Pentagon reporters during a video conference.

He added that since coalition airstrikes began in August 2014, Daesh had lost nearly 14,000 square miles (22,000 square kilometers), which constitutes about 40 percent of the territory the group held in Iraq, and about 1,200 square miles (2,000 square kilometers), or about 10 percent of territory it controlled in Syria.

"We believe that ISIL is now in a defensive crouch," Warren noted "Probably in May was really when they reached their culminating point of offensive operations. Since then, all they have really managed to do is lose ground."

Noting that scores of Daesh elements are yet to be cleared in neighborhoods in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, Warren claimed that Iraqi forces have killed 60 Daesh fighters in the city in the past 24 hours.

Ramadi fell to the Iraqi forces last week after being under Daesh control for months.

Daesh's oil production has been cut by about 30 percent, down from 45,000 barrels per day to 34,000, thanks to an air campaign that was recently launched to curb the oil revenues of the militant group, said Warren.

He also said Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance group that includes the Kurdish rebel group People's Union Party, or PYD, has managed to cross the Euphrates River toward the west.

Turkey objected to the group crossing the river which Ankara believes is in an effort to line up self-declared "cantons" that Syrian Democratic Forces established in northern Syria.

Ankara vowed to take military action if the fighters made such a move.

There have been reumors recently that the group was successful in crossing the river but Warren’s comments are the first official recognition of the move.

"Syrian Democratic Forces have seized the Tishrin dam and they have established a parameter on the west of side of the dam, far enough for enemy mortar fire," Warren said.