ISIS territory in Syria and Iraq
The Islamic State’s territory in 2015 shrank by 40% from its maximum expansion in Iraq and by 20% in Syria as international forces pushed its militants out of several cities, a spokesman of the US-led coalition said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh, swept through a third of Iraq in 2014, seizing Mosul, the largest city in the north, and reaching the vicinity of Baghdad.
ISIS has lost ground since its mid-2014 height. But the US-led coalition’s numbers elide a more complex reality on the ground. ISIS lost only 14% of its territory in 2015, according to the New York Times. And those territorial losses occurred amid expansion into strategically vital territory in Syria.
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