Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday the Islamic State is facing labor problems that are helping to disrupt the terrorist group’s effort to expand in the Middle East and sow terror across the globe.
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Kerry said the coalition fighting the Islamic State has launched more than 10,000 airstrikes against the group in the last 17 months. He said those strikes have helped reverse the group’s momentum, but also said issues related to wages are also hurting the group, which Kerry refers to as “Daesh.”
“All told, Daesh has been forced to abandon almost a third of the populated territory it had previously controlled in these countries, and many of their fighters, faced by a deep cut in wages and no new towns to plunder, have either deserted or been executed trying to escape,” he said in his prepared testimony.
Kerry said his department continues to work with the 65-member coalition fighting the Islamic State, and said the coalition’s strategy is to degrade and destroy the terrorist group.
“Our strategy is to combine our power, and the power of our partners, to degrade Daesh’s command structure, shrink the territory under its control, curb its financing, hammer its economic assets, discredit its lies, slow its recruitment, and block any attempt to expand its networks,” he said in his testimony.
“As President Obama has made clear, the murderous conduct that Daesh is trying to foment must be opposed with unity, strength, and a determination on our part to persist until we prevail,” he added.
Kerry also asked Congress to “speak with a single voice” against the Islamic State and approve a new authorization to use military force, something members of both parties have resisted so far.
Kerry’s broader testimony was on the State Department’s proposed budget request, which is about $50 billion in 2017, including a base budget of $35.2 billion, and an overseas operations budget of $14.9 billion.
