Pentagon: US-led aircraft drop about 5,000 bombs on ISIL targets

The US-led air raids have damaged or destroyed 3,222 targets, including 58 tanks, 184 Humvee armored vehicles, 673 fighting positions and 980 buildings or barracks, Pentagon spokesman Army Colonel Steve Warren said on Wednesday.
 
He said that US military officers could not say how many of the targets were damaged or destroyed, adding, “But I'm confident that the destruction level is high. Our strikes are extraordinarily accurate.”
 
Warren said the Pentagon did not want to reveal what percentage of ISIL weapons or vehicles had been destroyed by coalition forces because "we don't want our enemy to know how much we know about them."
 
The ISIL terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, control large parts of Syria's northern territory. ISIL sent its fighters into Iraq in June, quickly seizing large parts of Iraq.
 
Since late September, the US and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out airstrikes against ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.
 
US warplanes have been conducting airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq since early August. Some Western states have also participated in some of the strikes in Iraq.
 
The US-led coalition has done little to stop the ISIL's advances in parts of Syria and in western Iraq.
 
Some analysts have criticized the US-led aerial military campaigns in Iraq and Syria, saying the strikes are meant to destroy the Arab countries’ infrastructures.