Half of Iraq’s Daesh-held territories liberated: Kerry
US Secretary of State John Kerry says the momentum in the fight against the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group has shifted and Daesh has lost half of the land it once controlled in Iraq.
“The momentum has shifted,” Kerry said Wednesday during the opening speech of an Iraq donor conference in Washington, DC, according to Reuters.
“We are making progress with significant portions of Iraq reclaimed, significant portions of Syria now being reclaimed,” the top American diplomat added.
Officials from 24 nations were due in Washington to attend the Iraq pledging conference which is co-hosted by the US, Canada, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands.
The conference seeks to generate at least $2 billion in aid to provide the Arab country’s conflict-ridden areas with much-needed humanitarian aid.
“This is a cause that truly deserves a firm and generous commitment from everybody,” Kerry said.
Canada announced Tuesday that it will fund $200 million of the target figure. This is separate from more than $1.6 billion that Ottawa has said it will contribute to Iraq over the next three years.
Iraq’s economy has been battered as a result of the years-long war on Daesh and the plummeting oil prices.
Additionally, funding shortages have forced the UN to pull health programs and other services for the 3.3 million Iraqi war refugees. American officials said last week that only 38 percent of the projected $861 million budget has been delivered by the international community.
The northern and western parts of Iraq have been plagued by gruesome violence ever since Daesh terrorists began a campaign of terror in the country in June 2014, when they overran Mosul and declared it their so-called headquarters in Iraq.
Iraqi army soldiers and allied volunteer fighters have been battling to take back ISIL-held regions. Last month they liberated the key city of Fallujah.
Jan Kubis, the special representative of the UN secretary general for Iraq, said on July 15 that some 640,000 people have been displaced in the western province of Anbar alone, while more than 10 million Iraqis require some form of humanitarian assistance.
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