Flickr/Defence Images. Some rights reserved.The assault on Aleppo by Bashar al-Assad’s forces continues, with appalling consequences. It may even now be reaching a climax, aided by the Russian air attacks that are proving even less discriminate than the much larger number of coalition airstrikes across Syria and Iraq.
The overall intensity of aerial bombardment in the two countries combined is formidable. Airwars calculates that in the two and a half years of the air war against ISIS, there have been 16,587 airstrikes, with 60,079 bombs and missiles dropped and 1,915 civilians killed.
CENTCOM separately reported, as of the end of September 2016 and before the start of the Mosul operation, that airstrikes had hit 31,900 targets, including vehicles, buildings, staging areas, firing positions and oil installations. The number of ISIS paramilitaries and supporters killed appears now to be close to 50,000, given that a figure of “approaching 45,000” was published in August.
