NYT
WASHINGTON
— American airstrikes have killed 25,000 Islamic State fighters in Iraq
and Syria and incinerated millions of dollars plundered by the
militants, according to Pentagon officials.
Iraqi and Kurdish forces have taken back 40 percent of the militant group’s land in Iraq, the officials say, and forces backed by the West have seized a sizable amount of territory in Syria that had been controlled by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
But
the battlefield successes enjoyed by Western-backed forces in the
Islamic State’s heartland have done little to stop the expansion of the
militants to Europe, North Africa and Afghanistan. The attacks this year
in Brussels, Istanbul
and other cities only reinforced the sense of a terrorist group on the
march, and among American officials and military experts, there is
renewed caution in predicting progress in a fight that they say is
likely to go on for years.
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