US Kills Number of IS ‘Leaders’ In Iraq

A United States military spokesman reported on 29 September that in the last thirty days, air strikes by the United States and it s allies have killed eighteen Islamic State (IS) “leaders,” adding that thirteen of them were killed in Mosul, the militant group’s de facto Iraqi capital.

Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for US forces in Iraq and Syria, told a Pentagon briefing that many of those targeted where military commanders, propagandists and those facilitating foreign recruits into territory controlled by Islamic state, which has sympathizers worldwide. Dorrian further disclosed that “by taking these individuals off the battlefield, it creates some really disruptive effects to enemy command and control. He added that there are now between 3,000 and 4,500 IS fighters left in Mosul, noting that while new fighters are not able to enter the city in large convoys, they continue to move in small formations.

Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that the US would deploy around 600 new troops to Iraq in order to assist Iraqi forces in the battle to retake Mosul from IS militants, who control parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.  The US currently has 4,565 troops in Iraq as part of a US-led coalition that is providing extensive air support, training and advise to the Iraqi military, which collapsed in 2014 in the face of Islamic State’s territorial gains and lightning advance towards the capital, Baghdad.