CIA concludes US-led fight against IS a 'strategic stalemate': Report

A year after it began, American intelligence agencies have concluded that the US-led fight against the Islamic State group is a strategic stalemate, according to defence and intelligence officials who spoke with the Associated Press.

While the US has spent billions of dollars on a yearlong bombing campaign and some officials have suggested that the militant group is “losing,” one official told AP that the CIA and Defence Intelligence Agency, among other agencies, has concluded that the strategy has seen “no meaningful degradation" in the group's numbers.

Current estimates put the group’s total membership at between 20,000 and 30,000, the same estimate as a year ago when the coalition’s airstrikes started. Meanwhile, during this year, it has expanded its presence to Libya, the Sinai Peninsula and Afghanistan.

Without US ground troops – which the Obama administration has been adamant against deploying – analysts told AP that it could take a decade to push IS from its strongholds.

The report comes a day after the US Defense Department and Central Command went on the offensive to deny reports that fresh graduates from its Syrian “train and equip programme” were kidnapped by the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front.

On Thursday, major news agencies reported that Division 30, a US-based group within the FSA, had been captured by al-Nusra.

Included in the captured group was reportedly the battalion’s leader, Nadim Hassan, who had complained to the New York Times earlier this week that the US had failed to protect his fighters when they came under fire from Syrian government forces.

Hassan also complained that the night vision goggles he requested from the Pentagon had yet to materialise, and that some of his fighters had threatened to quit over unpaid expenses.

A CENTCOM spokesperson who contacted MEE on Thursday refused to deny reports that Division 30 was receiving US training, but categorically denied that any of its graduates were captured by al-Nusra Front this week.

According to Washington’s narrative, while US-trained rebels were not themselves captured, some of Division 30’s top leadership was targeted by al-Nusra weeks after their fighters reportedly completed the programme.

While some US officials have pointed to the group’s loss of a quarter of its territory in Iraq over the past year as a sign of success, critics have questioned the pace at which the country’s anti-IS strategy has moved, particularly the new $500mn training programme for Syrian rebels.

Earlier this month, US Secretary Defence Ashton Carter said out of 7,000 potential candidates for the programme, only 60 had been successfully vetted under tightened procedures.

“We don’t feel in Iraq that there’s a sense of urgency dealing with Syria,” Iraqi Ambassador to the US, Lukman Faily, told the Daily Beast last week.

“People need to have fewer red lines if they want to deal with Syria. They need to have more open minds,” Faily said.