Pam Bondi just lied again … this time suggesting the United States isn’t “really coming after” ISIS right now.
LIE: Pam Bondi suggested the U.S. isn’t “really coming after” ISIS. “Are you ready to send ISIS a message that we’re really coming after them?”
THE TRUTH
According to coalition military statistics, airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria have killed more than 6,400 Islamic State fighters in the last three months of 2015.
Airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria have killed more than 6,400 Islamic State fighters in the past three months, and the militant group is showing the effect of the losses, according to coalition military statistics. Casualty counts have not been a reliable measure of success against the Islamic State in the past because it replaced fallen fighters with new recruits. But as offensives by Iraqi troops reclaim territory from the radical group, the Islamic State is losing its ability to conscript fighters from areas it had controlled, which had been the major source of new troops. U.S. commanders say the combination of airstrikes and Iraqi ground offensives has weakened the terror group in Iraq and Syria and hurt its morale. ‘We are noticing they are not quite the same skill level that they once were,’ Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the top coalition commander, said in an interview. ‘Maybe they’re having trouble replacing quality with quality.’ Defections appear to be increasing, and the group’s ability to mount offensives has waned, MacFarland said. ‘We take that as a positive indicator that we’re starting to hit them where it hurts.’
President Obama will send 560 more troops to Iraq to help retake Mosul, the largest city still controlled by the Islamic State.
President Obama will send 560 more troops to Iraq to help retake Mosul, the largest city still controlled by the Islamic State, a deployment intended to capitalize on recent battlefield gains that also illustrates the obstacles that Mr. Obama has faced in trying to wind down America’s wars. The additional troops, announced here on Monday by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, are the latest escalation of the American military role in Iraq by Mr. Obama, who withdrew the last American soldiers from Iraq at the end of 2011. He began sending them back three years later after Islamic State fighters swept into the country from Syria. Many of the newly deployed troops will be based at an airfield 40 miles south of Mosul that was reclaimed by Iraqi soldiers on Saturday. Administration officials said the airfield would be critical to a successful military operation because the United States could use it as a staging area to provide logistical support to Iraqi forces as they try to retake Mosul.