Iraqis deliver string of blows to ISIS, but the fight is far from over
In the fight against ISIS, the U.S. is now using new cyber weapons against the terrorist group's computers. A U.S. Army general said Tuesday the attacks are highly effective, and highly classified.
On Monday, President Obama said 250 special forces troops will join 50 already in Syria to coordinate 30,000 local fighters.
Iraq says it's now fully recaptured the city of Hit, which sits in a key strategic position on an ISIS supply line between Iraq and Syria.
It's the latest in a string of Iraqi victories as American military advisers in Iraq are moved closer to the front line with ISIS.
In all, ISIS has lost around 40 percent of the territory it once controlled in Iraq, according to U.S. officials.
They also claim that coalition airstrikes have killed 25,000 ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria, and the Pentagon says only 200 foreign fighters are joining the extremists each month -- down from 1,500 a year ago.
But the numbers don't tell the whole story.
ISIS still controls the city of Fallujah. U.S. military advisers are now back in the surrounding province of Anbar -- one of the bloodiest battlefields after the American invasion of Iraq.
Mosul, Iraq's second biggest city, has been ruled by ISIS since 2014. But according to a U.S. intelligence official, Mosul probably won't be recaptured before next year.
Across the border in Syria, regime forces and a Kurdish-Arab alliance backed by the U.S. are both closing in on Raqqa, the so-called ISIS capital.
But even if ISIS is defeated in Syria, that's unlikely to end the country's bloody, multi-sided civil war. The Syrian ceasefire, agreed two months ago, is now in tatters as regime forces pummel the city of Aleppo.
If ISIS is completely stripped of its territory, at least some of its fighters would probably then turn to guerrilla warfare. And we're already seeing ISIS use those tactics around Ramadi -- which was recaptured from the group in February.