The U.S. has been ramping up its strikes against the Islamic State as its intelligence improves, a spokesman said Wednesday.
In November, 65 percent of strike missions in Iraq and Syria had at least one aircraft drop bombs, said Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve. In October, that number was 60 percent.
“We’re dropping more bombs because our capability to develop targets has increased as our intelligence has gotten better,” he told reporters at the Pentagon via video teleconference from Baghdad. “Our intelligence gets more precise every day, intelligence from one place leads to intelligence in another place. That all contributes to our ability to strike more.”
In the first four months of 2015, only about 25 percent of sorties had at least one weapons release, according to a Washington Times report.
Those low numbers drew criticism from members of Congress, who said the sorties that did not drop weapons needlessly put American lives at risk. Lawmakers said the low rate of bombings proved the need for more American spotters on the ground to collect intelligence and guide in airstrikes.
Other countries have also been increasing their strikes against the terrorist group. France pummeled the Islamic State’s self-declared capitol in Raqqa, Syria, last month in response to a string of six attacks by the Islamic State in Paris that killed 139 people. Russia, which has largely been striking groups fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad, also increased its anti-Islamic State strikes after they discovered a bomb took down a Russian airliner.
Germany and the United Kingdom are also both considering increasing their involvement in the coalition, according to reports.
Members of Congress have called on the administration to step up its targeting of the terrorist group following the Paris attacks.
“I don’t think the approach is sufficient for the job,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a top ranking Senate Democrat who serves on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said last month. “I’m concerned that we don’t have the time and we don’t have years. We need to be aggressive now.”
