The development is a blow to the group given that its aim is to capture and hold territory to expand its so-called “caliphate,” where it imposes a severe and bloody form of what it calls Islamic law!
The terrorist group’s losses include the strategically important town of Tal Abyad on Syria’s border with Turkey, the Iraqi city of Tikrit, and Iraq’s Baiji refinery.
Other big losses for the group include a stretch of highway between its Syrian stronghold Raqa and Mosul in northern Iraq, complicating supply lines.
“We had already seen a negative financial impact on the ISIS due to the loss of control of the Tal Abyad border crossing prior to the recent intensification of air strikes against the group’s oil production capacity,” said Columb Strack, IHS senior Middle East analyst.
The US-based thinktank said the group’s territory had shrunk 12,800 square kilometers to 78,000 square km between the start of the year and December 14.
Lands under Syrian Kurdish control jumped 186 percent over the year, IHS said.
“This indicates that the ISIS was overstretched, and also that holding Kurdish territory is considered to be of lesser importance than expelling the Syrian and Iraqi governments from traditionally Sunni lands,” Strack said.
“The Kurds appear to be primarily an obstruction to the ISIS, rather than an objective in themselves.”
Syrian Kurdish fighters dominate a group called the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters battling terrorists in northeastern Syria that has risen in prominence in recent months.
ISIS has also been beaten back by US-led coalition airstrikes, Iraqi forces and Syrian rebels.
Iraq’s government managed to claw back some six percent of its territory from ISIS in the past year, while Iraqi Kurds regained two percent of their lands; AFP reported.
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