45,000 IS fighters killed

About 45,000 jihadists have been killed in Iraq and Syria since the US-led operation to defeat the Islamic State group began two years ago, a top general said yesterday.

"We estimate that over the past 11 months, we've killed about 25,000 enemy fighters. When you add that to the 20,000 estimated killed (previously), that's 45,000 enemy (fighters) taken off the battlefield," said Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, who commands the US-led coalition campaign against IS.

MacFarland said estimates for the overall remaining strength of IS vary from about 15,000 to 30,000 but said the jihadists are having increasing difficulties replenishing their ranks.

"The number of fighters on the front line has diminished. They've diminished not only in quantity but also in quality -- we don't see them operating nearly as effectively as they have in the past, which makes them even easier targets for us," MacFarland told Pentagon reporters from Baghdad via a videocall.

"As a result their attrition has accelerated here of late," he added.

Officials also estimate IS has lost 25,000 square kilometers (9,650 square miles) of the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria, or about 50 percent and 20 percent respectively in each country.

The US-led military effort against the Islamic State group started exactly two years ago, aimed at halting the jihadists as they swept across Iraq and Syria.

MacFarland was upbeat about the eventual recapture of Mosul in Iraq and Raqa in Syria, saying it would herald the "beginning of the end" of the campaign.

In Syria, the Russian Defence Ministry yesterday said there would be daily three-hour ceasefires in Syria's Aleppo starting from Thursday to allow humanitarian convoys to enter the city safely.

Speaking at a briefing, General Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian Defence Ministry official, said the pause in fighting would take place from 10 in the morning to one in the afternoon local time.

He said "all military action, air and artillery strikes" would be halted for that period, and that Russia - together with the Syrian authorities - was ready to help all interested organisations safely deliver humanitarian aid to Aleppo's residents.

The United Nations has called for urgent aid access to Aleppo, warning that civilians are at risk from water shortages and disease as fighting has intensified.

Rebels and regime fighters have sent hundreds of reinforcements to Aleppo in anticipation of the fighting, after opposition forces broke a government siege at the weekend and vowed to capture the entire city.

In Libya, pro-government forces in Libya said they seized control of the IS's headquarters in Sirte yesterday as they push to oust the jihadists from the coastal city.

"The Ouagadougou centre is in our hands," the operations centre for forces loyal to Libya's Government of National Accord (GNA) said.

Reda Issa, a spokesman for the forces, said IS jihadists remained in three residential areas of the city and in a villa complex near the seafront.

"The announcement of the liberation (of Sirte) will only be made once the entire city is liberated," he told AFP.

Meanwhile, Afghan forces, backed by the United States, have killed an estimated 300 Islamic State fighters in an operation mounted two weeks ago, the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan said yesterday, calling it a severe blow to the group.

General John Nicholson said the offensive in the eastern province of Nangarhar was part of US operations to degrade the capabilities of Islamic State wherever it raised its head, whether in Iraq and Syria or in Afghanistan.

The group, believed to be confined to three or four of the more than 400 districts in Afghanistan, last month claimed responsibility for bombing a demonstration by the Shia Hazara minority in the capital, Kabul, in which at least 80 people were killed.