Why Body Count Is Bad Metric for Judging Islamic State Fight
Peshmerga fighters inspect the remains of a car, bearing an image of the trademark jihadist flag, which belonged to Islamic State (IS) militants after it was targeted by an American air strike in the village of Baqufa, north of Mosul, on August 18, 2014.
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After extremists’ latest advances in Syria and Iraq, the U.S. is falling back on an old and discredited metric -- estimated enemy body counts -- to show it isn’t losing the war against Islamic State.
Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, filling in at a Paris conference this week after his boss John Kerry broke his leg in a bicycling accident, said the U.S.-led coalition has killed about 10,000 Islamic State fighters since its campaign against the group began 10 months ago.