The number of foreign fighters entering Syria and Iraq to fight for Islamic State has plummeted by 90 percent, the Pentagon said in a press briefing Tuesday.
Former numbers of fighters streaming into the region ran as high as 2,000 a month, but that number is now down to just 200 a month, said Air Force Maj. Gen. Peter E. Gersten. Gersten serves as deputy commander for operations and intelligence for the anti-ISIS coalition.
Slow pressure building up around the terror group has caused cracks to form. Leaked financial documents show the group has had to repeatedly reduce the salary it pays to fighters because of pressing constraints. Restrictions on foreign antique sales and a dramatic drop in the price of oil has hit the group hard. U.S. airstrikes obliterated around $500 million of ISIS cash and brought down oil revenues by about 50 percent, a senior defense official recently told USA Today, who also added 1,500-2,000 ISIS fighters are dying every single month.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper estimated in February about 38,200 foreign fighters in total had traveled to Syria and Iraq since 2012. These fighters come from more than 100 countries. Of those foreign fighters, approximately 6,900 are from Western countries.
In the past, the U.S. has presented an unduly rosy picture of the fight against ISIS, forcing the Obama administration to modify its assessment numerous times. As just one example of over-exuberance, President Barack Obama declared just a day before the Paris attacks that ISIS had been “contained.”
“Foreign fighter flows are a seriously lagging indicator and the pressure has been on the group and the crossings for a while,” Patrick Skinner, director of special projects at the Soufan Group, told The Washington Post.
The U.S. has recently boosted its engagement with ISIS, sending over 50 special operators to Syria in December. Obama announced Mondayhe’s preparing to ship out an additional 250 special operators, which many have claimed is a classic example of “boots on the ground” and mission creep, both of which the Obama administration has desperately tried to avoid.
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