The number of foreign fighters traveling to join the Islamic State in Iraq has dropped since 2014, British Major General Rupert Jones, deputy commander for strategy and support of the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition, said on Tuesday (February 28).
The “glamorous ideology” of the Islamic State had been exposed as a “lie”, Jones said.
The militants’ morale was low, he added.
“They know this only ends one way and it ends in their defeat in Mosul.”
The general said one of the hallmarks of the coalition’s campaign was attacking the Islamic State on multiple fronts, weakening them substantially.
The top American commander in Iraq said this month he believed U.S.-backed forces will recapture ISIS’s two major strongholds—Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq—within the next six months.
The coalition estimates the number of ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria is at its lowest level in more than 2.5 years, with the group having lost 62 percent of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and 30 percent in Syria.
Iraqi security forces are getting close to the main government complex in western Mosul in their offensive to dislodge the militants from their last stronghold in the city, a military media officer said on Tuesday.
(REUTERS)
