WASHINGTON – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee took to the Senate floor to highlight the progress being made by coalition forces to degrade and destroy ISIS on the battlefield. Watch Carper’s full remarks here.
“One of the things that ISIS tries to do in recruiting people in this country is to convince them that they’re going to be part of a winning team. What we want to make really clear is that this isn’t going to be a winning team for much longer. In fact I think that the winning part of their season is behind them, and that what lies ahead is not good.”
Here are the latest fact and figures:
- Since the height of ISIS’s power, US and coalition forces have recaptured 47 percent of the land ISIS once held in Iraq.
- ISIS has also lost 20 percent of the land it once held in Syria.
- Iraqi counter terrorism forces backed by U.S. air support scored key victories in retaking Ramadi—an important Sunni city in the Anbar province—and Tikrit—the hometown of Saddam Hussein.
- Last Friday, Iraqi forces captured the city center of Fallujah and are now working to clear out the last few pockets of resistance in that key Anbar town.
- As we speak, Kurdish, Iraqi and Syrian Democratic forces–backed by US special forces– are making preparations to retake ISIS’s key strongholds in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria.
- We’ve killed 25,000 ISIS fighters and more than 120 key ISIS leaders.
- We’ve cut ISIS funds by up to one-third by targeting their oil production infrastructure with coalition airstrikes.
- Since late-2015, ISIS’s production of oil has declined by about 30%.
- We’ve drastically slowed the flow of foreign recruits from a high of about 2,000 a month in 2014 to 200 a month today.
- The same goes for those young Americans who have sought to travel to join ISIS abroad. One year ago, about 10 Americans per month were leaving to join ISIS. Now that number is about one a month.
- At home, the FBI is cracking down on recruits as well. Over the past two years, the FBI has arrested 88 individuals on ISIS related charges.
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