Coalition strikes on high-value ISIS targets have killed 70 senior and mid-level leaders since May, a rate of one leader killed every two days, the spokesman for the US-led coalition said. The coalition estimates that between 20-30,000 ISIS fighters remain on the battlefield, but aircraft have been able to kill replacement fighters as fast as they have been recruited, Army Col. Steve Warren, spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said Oct. 13. “We’re drying up their bench by killing this many of their leaders, they’re having to go to second- and third-tier leaders.” The coalition estimate of ISIS’s end strength, however, shows the group is able to fulfill its ranks despite constant airstrikes. The numbers are identical to an intelligence estimate of the group from July 2014, according to a report earlier this year in USA Today.
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…