While reports Monday said the Pentagon delivered plans to President Trump with options to ramp up the war against the Islamic State, an escalation of sorts is already in motion during the latter half of February. Information from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) concerning coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria against ISIS show that “engagements” nearly doubled in the last part of the month.
On January 19 of this year, CENTCOM began reporting not only the number of “strikes” against ISIS, but “engagements” as well. A “strike” is defined as “one or more kinetic engagements” in the same area to produce a specific result. Thus, in the example CENTCOM provides, “a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons” against multiple targets.
It is these “engagements” that have seen a marked increase in recent days. From January 18 through February 18, the coalition averaged 55 engagements per day. During the next eight days, February 19 through February 26, the average jumped to 102 engagements per day, including a high of 125 engagements on February 24 alone.
When asked about the increased activity, a CENTCOM spokesperson told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that several factors were involved: an increased number of planned targets, good weather, and additional “on-call” strikes related to the “increased operational tempo” of the Iraqi army’s efforts to retake West Mosul, plus additional strikes in Al Bab and Raqqah.
TWS also asked White House senior national security official Michael Anton about the escalation of coalition efforts against ISIS, but Anton referred questions back to the Department of Defense, saying “operational questions [are] better addressed from there.” Anton did not respond to a follow up inquiry about whether the increase reflected a policy decision by the Trump administration or if the increased strikes were within parameters already established for military commanders in the Persian Gulf theater.
In spite of the increased air strikes, CENTCOM told TWS that in the last six months, “no Coalition or U.S. planes have been lost or damaged while conducting strikes.” Some coalition drones, or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), CENTCOM continued, have crashed due to lost signals or other mechanical problems, but at least some of these were recovered while others have been destroyed by air strikes “in order to keep them from falling into enemy hands.”
