US-led forces drop nearly 5,000 bombs on IS group

US-led aircraft have dropped nearly 5,000 bombs in the air war against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, damaging or destroying more than 3,000 targets including tanks, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

The United States and its Western and Arab allies have carried out 1,676 strikes so far and launched 4,775 munitions, officials said.

The latest figures released by the US military signal a steady expansion in the scale of the air campaign launched in August and also reveal an adversary with hundreds of armoured and other sophisticated vehicles at its disposal.

Since coalition air raids started in Iraq in August and in Syria in late September, US and allied aircrafts have struck 58 tanks, 184 Humvee armoured vehicles, 303 pickup trucks, 26 armoured vehicles and 394 other vehicles, according to statistics from the Pentagon. 

Most of the vehicles, many of them US made, had been seized by IS fighters from the retreating Iraqi army. 

US military officers could not say how many of the targets were damaged or destroyed but spokesman Colonel Steven Warren told reporters: "I'm confident the destruction level is high."

It also remained unclear how many tanks or other vehicles the IS group still has in its arsenal after the air raids.  

Warren said the military did not want to say what percentage of IS weapons or vehicles had been destroyed because "we don't want our enemy to know how much we know about them".

American commanders insit the raids have halted the advance of the IS group in Iraq, disrupted its crude oil smuggling network and hampered its ability to move on the ground. 

But the IS militants remain in control of large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq and continue to receive new recruits.

The figures come a day after US officials said for the first time they were investigating at least two incidents in which civilians may have been killed in coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria, with three other cases also being assessed for possible probes.

Coalition aircraft have flown a total of 15,465 sorties in 'Operation Inherent Resolve,' including attack missions as well as refuelling runs and surveillance flights, officials said.

The vast majority of air strikes and other military flights are carried out by US aircraft although officials have declined to provide a breakdown of how many sorties were carried out by partner countries.

The US share of the operation, however, has already surpassed the American role in the 2011 air campaign in Libya.

‘Defensive posture’

On Tuesday, the Pentagon said that the IS has largely taken "a defensive posture" in Iraq in the last several weeks.

"We very much see ISIL largely in a defensive posture inside Iraq, that whatever momentum they had been enjoying has been halted, has been blunted. That has stayed steady over the last couple of weeks," said Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby Kirby during a daily briefing, while using a different acronym for Islamic State. 

The group still maintains control over Mosul and parts of Anbar province bordering the capital of Baghdad, and Ramadi in particular, he added.

Kirby said that it's very much a contested environment. "What we don't see, what we haven't seen in the last several weeks has been any renewed offensive moves by ISIL of any significance."

He also said that the US would send more troops to Iraq in the coming weeks in order to train Iraqi forces, but declined to give exact numbers.

There are currently 2,140 American soldiers and marines in Iraq. Eight hundred are protection forces, providing security for the US embassy and military personnel, and training Iraqi security forces at several locations in Iraq.  

The total number of American military personnel on the ground is expected to reach 3,000, as authorised by President Barack Obama.

Some American forces are located at al-Assad airbase north of Baghdad, there to train, advice and assist Iraqi security forces and Sunni tribesman who have joined the fight against IS. 

In addition, there are forces training Iraqi security forces in Taji, southwest of Baghdad as well as in the northern Iraqi Kurdistan. 

Kirby also touched on the anti-IS fight in Syria.

"There's not as much kinetic activity going on in Syria," he said. "Kobani still remains threatened, though in control by Kurdish forces, still remains threatened by ISIL. And as you know very well, we continue to conduct airstrikes in and around Kobani as we deem appropriate." 

He indicated that while the process to train and equip moderate Syrian fighters had not yet begun, progress was being made.