President Obama's shifting approach to the conflict is a lens through which to judge his legacy as a wartime leader.The U.S. dropped 26,171 bombs last year, 3,027 more than 2015.According to an analysis of Defense Department data from the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think tank, the majority of the bombs were dropped in
Iraq and Syria. The U.S. leads an international coalition fighting the Islamic State group in both countries and has carried out air operations in attempt to reduce the area controlled by the terrorist organization.
Nearly the same amount of bombs were dropped in Syria (12,192) and Iraq (12,095) last year.
President Obama announced during a press conference Wednesday that about 8,400 troops will remain in Afghanistan through the end of his term. Obama had previously planned to drop troop levels to 5,500 by early 2017.
President Barack Obama sought to draw down American military presence abroad and has resisted committing ground troops to various international conflicts. Despite pushes from within his administration to commit U.S. military forces to the civil war in Syria, Obama kept U.S. military action in the country focused on the Islamic State group. He was widely criticized for failing to follow through on the "red line" he set over Syrian President Bashar Assad's use of chemical weapons against his own people.
The U.S. dropped 79 percent of the anti-Islamic State group coalition bombs in Syria and Iraq, totaling 24,287. That figure, along with others analyzed by CFR,
is likely lower than the actual number dropped because one airstrike can involved multiple bombs.
Comment: Maybe the BoE should listen to this economist: Nobel-prizing winning economists: Euro was a mistake, threat to future of Europe