More Planes Than Targets - by Patrick Cockburn
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33889-focus-more-planes-t...
"...The US-led coalition has conducted 59,015 sorties in Iraq and Syria starting in August 2014, of which only 8,573 have resulted in airstrikes, indicating that the great majority of planes return to their bases without having used their weapons.
The highly informed Turkish military analyst Metin Gurcan, writing on Al-Monitor website, says that air strikes may have been effective against ISIS communications and training facilities, but adds that 'it is extraordinary that there is not a single ISIS control facility that has been hit by allied airstrikes.'
ISIS has modified its tactics to take account of the continuing risk of airstrikes. Heavy air attacks will increase ISIS's losses and it will be more difficult to bring in foreign volunteers through Turkey because most of the border is now closed.
But ISIS rules an area with a population of at least 6 million and conscripts all young men, who often want to become fighters because there is no other employment. ISIS may have a fighting force of 100,000 men, as is strongly suggested by the very long front line it holds and its ability to make multiple attacks simultaneously..."