Recent precision strikes and coordinated attacks targeting the Islamic State’s media cells have diminished the group’s communications capabilities by nearly half in less than six months, according to the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Combined Joint Task Force–Operation Inherent Resolve announced Sunday that strikes conducted by Operation Roundup between Dec. 23 and 29 hit Islamic State fighters, media cells, and a general service building in Syria’s Middle Euphrates River Valley region. As a result, the coalition said the Islamic State’s communications capabilities have been reduced by approximately 45 percent since September.
“The degradation of ISIS in both Iraq and Syria is directly reflected in the decline of their media operations,” Brig. Gen. David Doyle, the coalition’s director of operations, said in a statement.
According to Doyle, the Islamic State “places an enormous emphasis on their ability to produce and distribute propaganda” that is used to attract followers. As a result, the strikes have limited ISIS’ capacity to produce more propaganda.
Doyle also said the coalition will continue to target other facets of the Islamic State, including finance, recruitment, and ideology.
“The coalition’s effort to defeat ISIS extends beyond the physical domain,” said Doyle. “We will continue to remove ISIS from the battlefield, to include targeting their virtual presence, until they can no longer pray upon the vulnerable.”
Although President Trump declared last month that ISIS had been “defeated” in Syria and that troops would be withdrawn from the region, the coalition announced Friday that 469 airstrikes — consisting of 1,001 engagements — were conducted in Syria between Dec. 16 and 29. Similarly, nine airstrikes consisting of 14 engagements were carried out in Iraq during that same span of time.
Initial reports said the president wanted U.S. troops to exit Syria within 30 days, but he later told reporters Sunday that he “never said we were doing it that quickly.”
Approximately 2,000 U.S. troops have been in Syria as part of Operation Roundup, which is intended to destroy the Islamic State.
