U.S. Exaggerates Islamic State Casualties
Mar 13, 2015 7:00 AM EDT
The war against the Islamic State has killed thousands of fighters and even some mid-level battlefield commanders, but the organization's senior leadership and nerve center remain largely untouched, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials.
These officials and other experts tracking the terror group tell us that the Islamic State's Shura and Sharia councils, the advisory bodies that help inform the major decisions of the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, remain intact, notwithstanding one close call in November for Baghdadi. Although airstrikes and military campaigns have killed several regional administrators and designated governors, the Islamic State has quickly replaced them and maintains its command-and-control capabilities.
This assessment of progress against the Islamic State differs sharply from public statements by top Obama administration officials as recently as last month, including Secretary of State John Kerry and retired General John Allen, the president's special coordinator for the coalition against the Islamic State. In February, Allen said that half the group's leaders in Iraq had been killed.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference also in February, Kerry expanded that claim to account for the groups leadership in Syria as well.
Weve disrupted their command structure, undermined its propaganda, taken out half of their senior leadership, squeezed its financing, damaged its supply networks, dispersed its personnel, and forced them to think twice before they move in an open convoy," Kerry said.
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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-13/did-kerry-exaggerate-islamic-state-casualties-
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Another issue with the statistics on senior leadership is that the U.S. is relying heavily on the Iraqi and Kurdish security services for intelligence, including the interrogation of captured Islamic State fighters. "If we are getting a lot of our intelligence from the Iraqis, it's probably inflated," Bunzel said, "We should also remember that the Iraqis said for years that the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq was an actor playing a fictional character. This turned out not to be true."