More than 10,000 Islamic State group militants have been killed in the past nine months, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.
The U.S. official claims that those casualties were achieved after the U.S. and some of its Arab allies began carrying out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against the extremist group.
Blinken made his statements in an interview on France Inter radio, specifically using the Arabic term “Daesh” to describe the group, avoiding the term Islamic State, which many Muslims find despicable.
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The role of the U.S. and its allies in the war against the Islamic State group has been questioned by many, especially because the organization emerged after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Some analysts also suggest that the international coalition have helped enable the rise of the militant group in order to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Meanwhile, Syrian troops, along with Kurdish militias, keep fighting the extremist terrorists, who have killed more than 222,000 people in Syria alone since March 2011.