In Spite Of IS Gains In Iraq, US Military Maintains Its Strategy Against Militants Is Working
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| Credit: Zabelin/Thinkstock |
WASHINGTON — Despite major new setbacks in Iraq, the U.S. military command leading the fight against Islamic State militants insists that its strategy is working and that the militants' takeover of a key oil refinery and a government compound are fleeting gains feeding an IS propaganda machine.
"We believe across Iraq and Syria that Daesh is losing and remains on the defensive," said Marine Brig. Gen. Thomas D. Weidley, chief of staff for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, the name of the international campaign fighting IS. "Daesh" is the Arabic acronym for the militant group that swept into Iraq from Syria last June and swiftly took control of much of Iraq's north and west.
Even as Weidley spoke to reporters by phone Friday from his headquarters in Kuwait, IS militants were defying his description of them as a force on defense. Iraqi officials said IS fighters had captured the main government compound in Ramadi, the capital of battle-scarred Anbar province. Other officials said they had gained substantial control over the Beiji oil refinery, a strategically important prize in the battle for Iraq's future and a potential source of millions of dollars in income for the militants.
The battle to push IS out of Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, which some had hoped would begin this spring, now seems a more distant goal.
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