The Air War Against ISIL Sunday August 28th, 2016 at 8:05 AM
The Air War Against ISIL Sunday August 28 th , 2016 at 8:05 AM StrategyPage.Com 1 Share Attrition: The Air War Against ISIL August 28, 2016: The American led air campaign in Iraq and Syria is now two years old. In those two years there have been nearly 15,000 air strikes, with 75 percent of them carried out by American aircraft. So far 60 percent of the air strikes have been against targets in Iraq. The main objective of the air campaign was to cripple and then destroy ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). About a third of the airstrikes were against non-ISIL targets and most of the attacks on ISIL hit buildings (especially warehouses full of weapons and supplies), parking lots (for military and civilian vehicles used by ISIL) and fortifications. Since the air campaign began ISIL has lost half the territory it controlled and over 40 percent of its personnel strength. Things got a lot worse for ISIL in early 2016 because the Am