The U.S. led anti-Islamic State coalition’s air campaign engaged the terrorist group nearly 56,000 times killing 768 civilians, CENTCOM revealed in a Thursday statement.
“The percent of engagements that resulted in a credible report of civilian casualties was .35%,” CENTCOM declared, noting that “the Coalition conducted a total of 27,566 strikes that included 56,099 separate engagements between September 2014 and September 2017.”
The U.S. took pains to note an exhaustive review process of civilian casualty reports saying “investigations include interviewing witnesses and examining the site where possible, interviewing pilots and other personnel involved in the targeting process, reviewing strike and surveillance video, and analyzing information provided by government agencies, non-governmental reports, partner forces, and traditional and social media.”
After thorough review, 51 civilian casualties were added to the tally in the month of September 2017, indicating the high degree of operational tempo against the terrorist group. The U.S. dropped significant amounts of munitions on ISIS’s former capital of Raqqa throughout September. The Syrian Democratic Forces fully liberated the city in mid-October after a four-month-long pitched battle.
There have been a major uptick in aerial strikes on ISIS in 2017, as U.S. backed forces in Iraq and Syria moved in on the group’s strongholds. ISIS has lost almost every major city it holds in both countries and is down to controlling three percent of Iraq and five percent of Syria.
The U.S. backed Iraqi Security Forces announced their final push on ISIS held areas in Al-Qaim Thursday. Al-Qaim is situated in the middle Euphrates river valley, which links up with the terror group’s last stronghold in Syria. “The Government of Iraq and the ISF, with the support of the Global Coalition, have liberated more than 4.4 million Iraqis and reclaimed over 47,769 square kilometers, approximately 95% of land once held by Daesh,” CENTCOM gloated in an earlier release.
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