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50,000 Daesh fighters killed in the last two years

December 9, 2016 at 3:23 pm

The US military believes that some 50,000 Daesh fighters have been killed since the United States started battling the group more than two years ago, reported Reuters.

A senior US military official also believes that the figures are a “conservative estimate”.

The official, who spoke to Pentagon reporters on condition of anonymity, said the figure showed the effectiveness of US operations with its coalition who are combating Daesh on the ground with US providing air support.

The estimated number of fighters killed is significantly higher than the total number of fighters the CIA believed Daesh possessed inside Iraq and Syria in September 2014, which was between 20,000 and 31,500.

The high kill count also draws attention to the astonishingly broad definition that the US government uses to designate someone a “combatant”. In Yemen the US has adopted a controversial view as to who is or isn’t a combatant, designating all males of a military age as combatants.