WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition To Counter Islamic State has said that the dreaded terrorist group is fighting for their own survival.
'About six months ago, ISIS was planning major attacks in Raqqa. They were planning major attacks against the United States, against our partners, and they were doing it in Raqqa using infrastructure of a major city. Today in Raqqa, ISIS is fighting for every last block, and trying to defend blocks that they are about to lose,' Brett McGurk said in a special briefing Friday.
It is a fundamentally transformed situation, according to him.
When ISIS arrived on the international scene in 2014, ISIS had 40,000 foreign fighters from 110 countries around the world pouring into Syria and Iraq. They controlled what was effectively a quasi-state. They were able to mass and maneuver force all around Iraq and Syria, taking entire cities, controlling millions of people under their domain. Since that time, they have lost about 70,000 square kilometers of territory in Iraq and Syria. About 78 percent of the territory they used to hold in Iraq, they can no longer operate in, and about 58 percent of the territory they used to hold in Syria, they can no longer operate in.
McGurk noted that importantly, of all that territory that they have lost, they have not regained. ISIS have never been able to retake any of this ground and we're going to make sure that that continues, he told reporters.Almost 5 million people who had been living under ISIS are no longer living under ISIS. They have been liberated by coalition-enabled operations on the ground.
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