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Isis ranks have been pared back to lowest level since 2014
Source: Agence France-Presse
Isis ranks have been pared back to lowest level since 2014
Agence France-Presse
Wednesday 13 April 2016 14.23 BST
The Islamic State group’s ranks have been pared back by international and local military action in Iraq and Syria to their lowest level since Washington began monitoring the group, a senior US official said Tuesday.
The comments from deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken came one day before Barack Obama was due to convene his national security team at CIA headquarters to take stock of the anti-Isis fight.
“Working by, with and through local partners, we have taken back 40% of the territory that Daesh controlled a year ago in Iraq and 10% in Syria,” Blinken told US lawmakers in prepared testimony.
“In fact, we assess Daesh’s numbers are the lowest they’ve been since we began monitoring their manpower in 2014,” he added, using one of three terms US officials use interchangeably to refer to Isis.
Blinken did not put a new figure on the size of the jihadist group’s fighting force in his statement to the Senate committee overseeing funding for the State Department’s program to counter violent extremism.
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Agence France-Presse
Wednesday 13 April 2016 14.23 BST
The Islamic State group’s ranks have been pared back by international and local military action in Iraq and Syria to their lowest level since Washington began monitoring the group, a senior US official said Tuesday.
The comments from deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken came one day before Barack Obama was due to convene his national security team at CIA headquarters to take stock of the anti-Isis fight.
“Working by, with and through local partners, we have taken back 40% of the territory that Daesh controlled a year ago in Iraq and 10% in Syria,” Blinken told US lawmakers in prepared testimony.
“In fact, we assess Daesh’s numbers are the lowest they’ve been since we began monitoring their manpower in 2014,” he added, using one of three terms US officials use interchangeably to refer to Isis.
Blinken did not put a new figure on the size of the jihadist group’s fighting force in his statement to the Senate committee overseeing funding for the State Department’s program to counter violent extremism.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/13/isis-islamic-state-lowest-level-since-2014-us-official