Yearender 2016: The year ISIS 'caliphate' buckled
Published : Dec 23, 2016, 3:53 pm IST
Updated : Jun 28, 2019, 6:27 pm IST
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 still remains a potential threat.
Fallujah, which had been under the control of ISIS since January 2014, was taken over by the Iraqi forces on June 17 after they raised their national flag above the main government buildings in the region.
Iraqi soldiers check a cemetery where jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) group were buried in Fallujah.
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.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces look at a checkpoint held by Islamic State militants in Iraq's second city of Mosul. Iraqi forces pushed deeper into Mosul in November, expanding its foothold in ISIS-stronghold in the country.
The fall of Sirte to pro-government forces in December was a significant setback for the Islamic State group in Libya.
Despite the formidable arsenal ISIS 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.
According to the Pentagon, at least 50,000 ISIS extremists have been killed since 2014, twice the number of fighters the coalition estimated the group had when the caliphate was proclaimed.
Syrian army, in December 2016, 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.
Almost three million people and more than 44,000 square kilometres of territory have been liberated from ISIS in 2016, US army general Steve Townsend had said.