In less than 1 full year President Trump has accomplished more against the ISIS terrorists as Obama did in six years. You can tell by the fact that ISIS now has only about 1,000 fighters left in Syria and Iraq and have seen their territory shrink by 60%. What’s left of them are in hiding along the Syria Iraq border. President Trump changed the rules of engagement and instead of micromanaging the war like Obama did, Trump has entrusted the military to do what they need to do to wipe ISIS off the map and it’s working.
British Army Maj. Gen. Felix Gedney told the Pentagon Press Corps:
“During 2017 over 60,000 square kilometers were liberated from ISIS across Iraq and Syria. This estimate means ISIS lost nearly 60 percent of the territory it once controlled in 2017.”
During the Obama administration and one year of Trump, 7.7 million Iraqis and Syrians have been freed from ISIS. During Trump’s one year 4.5 million have been freed. What a sharp contrast between the two very different presidents. Remember Hillary saying during the campaign that ISIS would love Trump to become president because their numbers would swell? I think it’s safe to say that ISIS would rather have Obama or Hillary in the Oval Office rather than Trump.
Success against the terrorist group has been so rapid the U.S.-led coalition estimates only approximately 1,000 ISIS fighters remain on the battlefield across Iraq and Syria. This number is particularly striking given a 2014 CIA estimate of up to 31,500 fighters for the terrorist group.
The 1000 remaining fighters are largely isolated in various desert pockets besieged from the air by U.S. aircraft and probed by U.S.-backed fighters on the ground. Gedney also boasted that nearly 130 “ISIS leaders or high value targets” were killed by the coalition in 2017 alone.
The loss of territory, population under its control, and leaders has choked off ISIS from many of the oil fields it once relied upon to gleam revenue from and thrown a wrench in its propaganda efforts.
US troops will remain in Iraq for a while. It is expected that ISIS will return to being a terrorist group instead of trying to rebuild what has been destroyed. ISIS is still fighting in many other countries but now we know what works and we can follow them from country to country and systematically wipe them out.
