Thomas Joscelyn writes for the conservative "Weekly Standard." I ran across these tweets last week while researching, saved them on my phone and just noticed them now.
1. US mil officer says 20,000 ISIS members killed, but overall force remains 20-30k, same as when bombings began.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/10/12/islamic-state-pentagon/73840116/ …
2. So, if you believe that, then ISIS has replaced anywhere between 67% and 100% of its ranks since US-led bombing campaign began last year.
3. Far more likely, as we've argued from beginning: the total # of ISIS fighters was drastically underestimated in the initial assessments.
4. However, there's little doubt that new recruits have offset at least part of the attrition in ISIS' ranks. How much is unknown.
5. Still, difficult to see how ISIS could maintain a cohesive fighting force if they replaced 67-100% of its fighters in 1 year. Prob wrong
