Retired Gen. John Allen (2nd left), Brett McGurk, and President Obama. Reuters
Patrick Tucker, Defense One: Flow of Foreign Fighters to ISIS Stopped, Trump Tactics Working, McGurk Says
In four key areas, the Trump administration is taking the fight to ISIS in a way that Obama did not, to great effect according to the policy head who worked under both.
The flow of foreign fighters trying to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria has stopped completely. “They can’t get in now and the foreign fighters that did get in, they will die in Iraq and Syria” according to the top U.S. official coordinating the international fight against the terrorist organization.
That’s just one of several metrics to show that under the Trump administration the United States-led coalition is accelerating the demise of the Islamic State group, or ISIS, by changing strategies and doubling down on others, argued Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, at the Middle East Institute on Thursday
To date, the multinational 73 member coalition against has cleared 70,000 square km and freed 5 million people under ISIS control, he said.
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WNU editor: Special Presidential envoy Brett McGurk is giving a lot of credit to a lot of people .... but he should give himself some too. Appointed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, he had the monumental task of putting a coalition together to fight ISIS .... and he has succeeded. I know in my case .... I did not expect 6 months ago that ISIS would collapse as much as they have since then, nor the coalition sticking it out as long as they have.
