ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - International and national forces in Iraq and Syria conducted 94 operations against the Islamic State (ISIS) in the first three months of the year, the United States military said on Saturday.
US forces, international allies with in the anti-ISIS coalition, Iraqi security forces, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) “conducted 94 Defeat ISIS Missions resulting in 18 ISIS operatives killed and 63 detained from January through March,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on X.
The bulk of the operations were carried out in Iraq.
Around 2,500 ISIS fighters remain at large across Iraq and Syria, according to CENTCOM, calling the pursuit of them “a critical component to the enduring defeat of ISIS.”
The force also stressed ongoing efforts by the international community to repatriate thousands of ISIS fighters and their families from detention camps in Syria.
"We are committed to the enduring defeat of ISIS because of the threat they pose both regionally and globally. We continue to focus our efforts on specifically targeting those members of ISIS who are seeking to conduct external operations outside of Iraq and Syria and those ISIS members attempting to break out ISIS members in detention in an attempt to reconstitute their forces," said CENTCOM commander General Michael “Erik” Kurilla.
Baghdad has downgraded the threat that ISIS poses, saying that the group has been confined. The Iraqi government, under pressure from Iran-backed armed groups to expel US forces from the country, has begun talks with Washington to wind down the coalition mission.
The US-led coalition advises and provides aerial assistance to Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi army, as well as the SDF in the fight against ISIS.
ISIS seized control of vast swathes of Iraqi and Syrian land in 2014 and was declared territorially defeated in 2019. While the group no longer controls any territory, it continues to pose a serious security risk through bombings, hit-and-run attacks, and abductions in both countries.
