After nine months and nearly $2.5 billion spent by the U.S. battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist group controls holds more territory than it did before the American-led military campaign began last fall.
“While more than 10,000 ISIS fighters are said to have been killed by airstrikes so far, the Iraq and Syrian turf where ISIS fighters roam has nevertheless grown in the past 10 months,” reports Defense One, including a video that reveals the limited success of U.S. airstrikes in narrowing Islamic State-held territory.
Military operations against the Islamic State began August 8, 2014. From then until May 7th of this year, the U.S. spent $2.44 billion, according to the Department of Defense. The U.S. spends $8.9 million per day on military operations meant to defeat the group.
Despite those efforts, the Islamic State continues to launch offensives, capturing key cities in the past month.
Militants recently overran the 4,000 year-old Syrian city of Palmyra, giving them control of half the country. The Islamic State launched an attack against Aleppo last weekend, heightening the risk of Syria’s largest city falling under jihadi control. (US Embassy Accuses Syrian Regime Of Supporting ISIS Advance)
Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s largest province, was captured by a reported 400 Islamic State fighters in mid-May. The country’s largest oil refinery remains contested, battered by continued fighting between Islamic State militants, Iraqi security forces, and Shiite militias. (Iraq’s Biggest Oil Refinery ‘Threatened’ By ISIS)
The Islamic State was ousted from the Iraqi city of Tikrit in early April, one of the most recent instances of the U.S.-led coalition working with allied ground forces to retake the town in which Saddam Hussein grew up.
President Obama proposed a three-year time frame for the war against the Islamic State, ending after he completes his second term in the Oval Office. This is a strategic move, intended to shield the administration from criticism, according to Michael Rubin, an expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
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