ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The US Central Command (CENTCOM) on Wednesday announced that 30 Islamic State (ISIS) members were detained in Iraq and Syria in July, following operations conducted with local allies.
CENTCOM said in its monthly report on the anti-ISIS mission that 31 operations were carried out in July. Twenty of them were in Iraq and the remaining 11 were conducted in Syria.
The report indicates that in Iraq, two ISIS operatives were killed and 24 were detained. In Syria, three members were killed and six were detained.
“Thanks to the efforts of our Coalition-supported partners, we have seen a dramatic reduction in ISIS activity and effectiveness across our area of operations,” the report cited Major General Matthew McFarlane who reiterated the US commitment to advising, assisting, and enabling its partners in the “lead towards an enduring defeat of ISIS”.
At least 21 ISIS militants were detained and 13 others were killed in joint operations between US forces and local armed forces in Iraq and Syria in June.
An ISIS leader was arrested in the province of Deir ez-Zor in northeast Syria (Rojava) by the Kurdish forces on July 22.
ISIS seized control of vast swathes of land on both sides of the border in 2014 and was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria 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.
The coalition advises and provides aerial assistance to Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi army as well as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against ISIS. In recent weeks, the SDF has carried out a string of raids against ISIS targets in northeast Syria (Rojava), in coordination with the US-led global coalition.
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