Top Obama administration officials have touted the successful dismantling of the Islamic State group's senior leadership, but military and intelligence officials recently told Bloomberg that those claims are likely exaggerated.
Retired General John Allen, the president's special coordinator for the fight against the Islamic State, said in February that half the group's leaders in Iraq had been killed, according to Bloomberg. Also in February, Secretary of State John Kerry expanded on that claim during a speech at the Munich Security Conference, claiming that much of group's leadership in Syria had also been killed.
"We've disrupted their command structure, undermined its propaganda, taken out half of their senior leadership, squeezed its financing, damaged its supply networks, dispersed its personnel, and forced them to think twice before they move in an open convoy," Kerry said.
According to one State Department official, Kerry's claims were based on internal department deliberations.
But U.S. military officials told Bloomberg that there is no consensus in the intelligence community supporting claims that half the Islamic State group's leadership has been killed.
Regarding Kerry's 50 percent statistic, Army Captain John J. Moore, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, told Bloomberg, "We currently don't have a percentage attached to that statistic."
Other experts told Bloomberg that it's tough to define the terrorist group's leadership, as its structure is opaque and there is little known about the membership of the group's critical Shura and Sharia councils. Additionally, different elements of the U.S. government have a hard time agreeing on what constitutes a "senior leader."
"I am very skeptical of the claim that the coalition has killed 50 percent of the leadership of the Islamic State, whatever that means," said Cole Bunzel, a Princeton University scholar of Near Eastern Studies.
"The Islamic State has publicly announced when senior members of the group have been killed. But they have never talked about anyone in the core leadership being killed since 2010."
Michael Smith, a principal of the counterterrorism consulting group Kronos Advisory LLC, pointed out to Bloomberg that groups like the Islamic State "typically eulogize slain leaders," and that hasn't been done.
"If the administration is confident about these claims, it should name names," Smith said. "Because highlighting such kills demonstrates the efficacy of our counter-campaign, and that can deter individuals from joining or supporting the Islamic State. But lying about our achievements plays right into the Islamic State's PR game."
