BAGHDAD — The U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group says the militants have lost 30 percent of the territory they once held in Iraq and Syria.
Baghdad-based spokesman Col. Steve Warren said Tuesday that the extremists have lost 40 percent of their territory in Iraq and 20 percent in Syria, saying they are now in a “defensive crouch.”
The U.S.-led coalition has been launching airstrikes since 2014 in support of Iraqi forces and Kurdish fighters.
Last month, Iraqi forces backed by U.S.-led airstrikes pushed Islamic State fighters out of the city center of Ramadi, a provincial capital west of Baghdad that fell to the extremists last May.
The Islamic State still holds much of northern and western Iraq, including the country’s second-largest city Mosul, and large parts of Syria.
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