ISIL death toll at 20,000, but 'stalemate' continues

Tom Vanden Brook | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The U.S.-led bombing campaign has killed an estimated 20,000 Islamic State fighters, an increase from the 15,000 the Pentagon reported in July, according to a senior military officer.

Airstrikes from the American-led campaign, which began in August 2014, have rattled the militants from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, said the official and another Pentagon official familiar with intelligence. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The second official said intercepted communications show ISIL militants to be fearful of the allied air attacks, which have forced them to change their tactics.

But despite the higher number of casualties and the airstrikes' erosion of morale among ISIL fighters, the militant group continues to draw new fighters to Iraq and Syria. The overall force, the first official said, remains about where it was when the bombing started: 20,000 to 30,000 fighters.

The estimate of 20,000 dead Islamic State fighters seems accurate, said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution. The overwhelming percentage of the dead are likely Islamic State militants, not civilians, he said.

"It is quite a large number and helps explain why the geographic space that ISIL controls hasn't grown much," O'Hanlon said. "However, it also hasn't shrunk much. ISIL continues to attract followers from all over the world — apparently more this year than ever before."

Despite more than 7,300 airstrikes and more than $4 billion spent on operations and training local forces, Islamic State continues to hold major Iraqi cities.

"It continues to hold Mosul, Ramadi and many other places despite our hopes that some of those conquests could have been reversed right now," O'Hanlon said. "On balance, from my distant perspective at least, I'd have to call the war stalemated — in both Iraq and Syria — at present."