Western powers, Turkey, Iran, Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish forces and militias have played a part in surge against IS in 2016
The US-led coalition, which operates in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq, says it takes all possible measures to avoid civilian casualties. (Photo: Representational/File)- Almost three million people and more than 44,000 square kilometres of territory have been liberated from IS in 2016, US army general Steve Townsend said.
- Kurdish Peshmerga forces look at a checkpoint held by Islamic State militants in Iraq's second city of Mosul.
- In December 2016, Syrian army said it had retaken complete control of Aleppo after the last rebel fighters were evacuated from the city, handing President Bashar al-Assad his biggest victory of the war.
- According to the Pentagon, at least 50,000 IS fighters have been killed since 2014, twice the number of fighters the coalition estimated the group had when the caliphate was proclaimed.
- Despite the formidable arsenal IS seized from regular forces and the fear it instilled in the world with its campaign of well-publicised atrocities, the jihadist group stopped expanding and eventually buckled.
- The fall of Sirte to pro-government forces was a significant setback for the Islamic State group in Libya.
- In August 2016, US-backed fighters took 'almost complete control' of an ISIS stronghold in northern Syria that analysts said was the key to the advance to Raqqa, the group's de facto capital.
- In October 2016, Turkish-backed rebels captured the emblematic northern Syrian town of Dabiq from the Islamic State group, dealing a major symbolic blow to the jihadists.
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- Iraqi soldiers check a cemetery where jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) group were buried in Fallujah.
Multiple ground assaults and a deluge of air strikes shrank the Islamic State group\'s ‘caliphate’ to a rump and decimated its fighters in 2016 but the organisation remains a potential threat.
Western powers, Turkey, Iran, Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish forces and militias have played a part in surge against IS in 2016
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