WASHINGTON — Ten weeks into its war against Islamic State extremists, the Pentagon is settling in for the long haul, short on big early successes but still banking on enlisting Syrians and Iraqis to fight the ground war so that U.S. troops won't have to.
The U.S. general overseeing the campaign on Friday predicted that the jihadists will be "much degraded" by airstrikes a year from now, in part because he is focusing attacks on those resources that enable IS to sustain itself and resupply its fighters.
On Friday, for example, the U.S. military said one of its six airstrikes overnight in Syria hit several IS petroleum storage tanks and a pumping station — sites that are central to the militants' ability to resupply their forces and generate revenue. Likewise, it said two coalition airstrikes in Iraq damaged or destroyed IS military targets near the contested town of Beiji, home of Iraq's largest oil refinery.
In his first public overview of the campaign he leads from the Florida headquarters of U.S. Central Command, Army Gen. Lloyd Austin cautioned against expecting quick progress. He said he cannot predict how long it will take to right a wobbly Iraqi army and build a viable opposition ground force in Syria.
"The campaign to destroy ISIL will take time, and there will be occasional setbacks along the way," Austin told a Pentagon news conference, "particularly in these early stages of the campaign as we coach and mentor a force (in Iraq) that is actively working to regenerate capability after years of neglect and poor leadership."
While hammering the jihadists daily from the air, the U.S. military is talking of a years-long effort — one that will require more than aerial bombardment, will show results only gradually and may eventually call for a more aggressive use of U.S. military advisers in Iraq.
As of Thursday the U.S. had launched nearly 300 airstrikes in Iraq and nearly 200 in Syria, and allies had tallied fewer than 100, according to Central Command. Those figures don't capture the full scope of the effort because many airstrikes launch multiple bombs on multiple targets. Central Command said that as of Wednesday, U.S. and partner-nation air forces had dropped nearly 1,400 munitions.
Officials say the strikes have squeezed IS and slowed its battlefield momentum. More specifically, they claim they have destroyed an array of Islamic State military targets: command posts, sniper positions, artillery guns, armed trucks, tanks, mortar positions, buildings, mobile oil refineries and more. The Pentagon has shied from providing a body count, but Kirby said several hundred IS fighters have been killed in Kobani alone in recent days.
