In the wake of the New York City truck attack that killed eight and for which ISIS claimed responsibility, President Donald Trump tweeted that “the Military has hit ISIS ‘much harder’ over the last two days.” However, there is no direct evidence of a spike in anti-ISIS strikes, and the broader picture of pace of the war against ISIS is decidedly mixed.
In the wake of coalition victories against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, including the recapture of several keys cities, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that strikes reports—summaries of missions against ISIS that are released to the media and made public online—in those two countries would be cut back from daily to twice weekly “in accordance with current operational tempo.” The number of strikes reported by CENTCOM has indeed decreased markedly in the last several weeks with no bump in the time period cited by the president.
Asked about the apparent contradiction, a CENTCOM spokesperson told THE WEEKLY STANDARD:
“The President’s comments addressed the global fight against Daesh. While we cannot speak to the global fight against Daesh at our level, we can tell you that the Coalition and its partners have continued to consistently, unrelentingly take the fight to Daesh terrorists in Iraq and Syria over the past three years. As a result of our combined efforts, we have recovered more than 95 percent of the land in the terrorists’ so-called caliphate, while freeing 6.9 million Syrians and Iraqis.”
The spokesperson went on to characterize the current mission of Operation Inherent Resolve—referring to the efforts to counter ISIS in Iraq and Syria—as “a period of ‘consolidating gains,'” transitioning from “the physical battlefield to the battlefield of ideas.”
The spokesperson said “consolidating gains” refers to, among other things: preventing ISIS from turning into an “effective insurgency”; providing security for diplomatic efforts; increasing economic opportunities as an alternative to “taking arms against fellow citizens or foreigners”; rebuilding homes, schools, places of worship, and infrastructure; and “reconciliation among tribes, sects and ethnic groups to build national unity among citizens of Iraq, and setting conditions for political settlement in Syria.”
When asked to further explain the president’s ISIS comments, Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon told TWS, “Cutting back the frequency of strike reports has nothing to do with the president’s tweet. CJTF-OIR assessed, long prior to the tweet, that daily updates aren’t necessary anymore.” Pahon went on to stress that the war against ISIS continues with “operations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Philippines, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, the Sinai in Egypt and wherever these groups emerge.”
While the military periodically releases reports of anti-ISIS strikes in places other than Iraq and Syria, none have been as regular as the CENTCOM reports for those two countries. For example, AFRICOM, the military command that oversees anti-ISIS efforts in Africa recently reported two strikes in Somalia that roughly coincided with the president’s tweet. In mid-October, CENTCOM reported an anti-ISIS strike in Yemen.
While the Pentagon asserts that anti-ISIS efforts continue globally, Afghanistan may actually be the new main front in the war against the terrorist organization. On November 1, Col. Stephane Wolfgeher of the 455th Expeditionary Operations Group out of Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina said:
A spokesperson for Operation Resolute Support in Afghanistan did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the pace of recent operations in Afghanistan. National security staff at the White House did not respond to several requests for comment for this story either.
