An international coalition battling against Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria is beginning to win back territory and deprive the jihadists of key funds, U.S. top diplomat John Kerry said Sunday as he denounced the group's "new level of depravity".
Washington has rallied more than 60 countries in the fight against the Islamic State group, and while Kerry told a global security conference it would be a long battle, he said there were signs the strategy was working.
Since August there have been 2,000 air strikes by the coalition, Kerry told the Munich Security Conference, saying it had helped to retake some 700 square kilometres in territory, or "one-fifth of the area they had in their control."
The U.S. secretary of state did not specify whether the regained territory was in Iraq or Syria, but he added the coalition had "deprived the militants of the use of 200 oil and gas facilities ... disrupted their command structure.... squeezed its finance and dispersed its personnel."