Islamic State has Lost More than Fifth of its Territory

• 03.17.2016, 12:58
•  Near East,  World

news.bigmir.net

The Islamic State has lost about 22 percent of its territory in Iraq and Syria in the past 15 months, according to a new study, Washington Post reports. In 2014, the extremist group exploited the power vacuums racking the region, surging into major cities on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian desert border. Since then, its brutal massacres and myriad acts of destruction have sparked global outrage and prompted more than a year of airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition.

Now, according to a report from IHS Jane's 360, the tide is decisively turning against the extremist organization. Despite a territorial advance last summer in parts of Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has suffered significant setbacks - as the regions marked in red in the map above show. IHS estimated that the Islamic State lost about 14 percent of the territory under its control in 2015 and a further 8 percent in the first three months of this year.