WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — At the meeting, held in Washington, DC on Monday, McGurk told coalition representatives that the loss has escalated during the current operations to recapture Mosul and Raqqa from Daesh.
"Local ground forces, with coalition support, have now retaken 56 percent of the populated territory ISIL [Daesh] once held in Iraq and 27 percent of what it once held in Syria," the release cited US coalition envoy Brett McGurk as saying at a coalition plenary meeting.
On October 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi launched the operation to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul, which had been under Daesh's control since June 2014.
Earlier in November, the Syrian Democratic Forces announced Operation Euphrates Rage to reclaim the city of Raqqa from terrorists. Captured in 2013, Raqqa serves as the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria.
