Hardly a day goes by that some top US official, particularly in the Pentagon, doesn’t hype how well the war against ISIS is going, claiming massive territorial gains, huge numbers of slain ISIS fighters, and the group being “on the run.”
All these claims are repeated, usually unquestioningly, but at the same time, ISIS continues with its expansion region-wide, with growing affiliates in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and a continued capability to launch attacks in Europe and abroad.
The numbers don’t readily add up, when US officials claim 25,000 ISIS fighters killed in Iraq and Syria, only to revise the number of ISIS fighters in that region down by a few thousand, and then report large increases in Libya with the belief that fighters are flocking there.
ISIS recruitment seems to be able to replace its losses, and as with so many recent US wars, the formal claims of progress in the war aren’t built around anything tangible that can be seen on the ground. Even claims of ISIS losing 40% of their territory are dubious, and built artificially assigning empty desert to ISIS in the past, and claiming it “lost” now, even though it’s no more empty than ever.
Maybe there are 25,000 dead with 90% non combatants included in the total similar to the ratio found for drone strikes. The ten per cent of air strike deaths would be 2,500 or about the total estimated decline in ISIS force levels.
Not to mention that Russia’s airstrikes in Raqqa is also virtually all civilians.
In Assad’s barrel bombs, 99% of the casualties are civilians and only 1% are combatants. (That’s the civilian/combatant fatality ratio for barrel bombs. Of course the civilian/combatant fatality ratio different for
other forms of combat. That’s why some statistics still show that most
of the people killed are combatants instead of civilians.)
Russia is slaughtering innocent truck drivers. Russian accuses those trucks of smuggling oil, but they have no confirmation. Oil trucks are
cylindrical but they also bomb rectangular trucks which are unlikely to carry oil. In fact these trucks are not smuggling oil or weapons. Here’s a video of the truck drivers themselves:
https://www.facebook.com/solidaysyria/videos/994351503941585/
I think they include women and children, since they can’t do
a head count on the ground…similar to drone strikes.
Correct, 90% of U.S. drone strikes are civilians.
It’s even worse in Syria and Iraq since they don’t have ground forces to confirm ex post facto. Also according to Obama there are looser “rules of engagement” when fighting the Islamic State.
Russia’s airstrikes in Raqqa is also virtually all civilians, according to various news reports of bombing raids and Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered silently (an organization both against the Islamic State and the Syrian government).
In Assad’s barrel bombs, 99% of the casualties are civilians and only 1% are combatants. (That’s the civilian/combatant fatality ratio for barrel bombs. Of course the civilian/combatant fatality ratio different for other forms of combat. That’s why some statistics still show that most of the people killed are combatants instead of civilians.)
Russia is slaughtering innocent truck drivers. Russian accuses those trucks of smuggling oil, but they have no confirmation. Oil trucks are
cylindrical but they also bomb rectangular trucks which are unlikely to carry oil. In fact these trucks are not smuggling oil or weapons. Here’s a video of the truck drivers themselves:
https://www.facebook.com/solidaysyria/videos/994351503941585/