News that the US is sending 560 more troops to Iraq as part of the push to recapture the northern city of Mosul from Isis is being seen as further evidence the jihadis are on the run. Surveys that show Isis has lost 12 per cent of its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq so far this year, after a shrinkage of 14 per cent in 2015, feed into this narrative. So, too, in its grim way, does the spate of terror attacks with which Isis has marked Ramadan, from Baghdad to Bangladesh, and Medina to Istanbul.
據稱,美國將向伊拉克增派560名軍人,力圖從“伊斯蘭國”(ISIS)手中奪回伊拉克北部城市摩蘇爾。該消息被視為圣戰分子正在潰敗的進一步證據。與ISIS潰敗說相吻合的是,有調查稱,今年迄今,ISIS在敘利亞和伊拉克自封的哈里發國已經丟掉了12%的地盤(2015年丟掉了14%)。同樣與ISIS潰敗說相吻合的是,它以其殘忍的方式接連在世界各地——從巴格達到孟加拉國,從麥地那到伊斯坦布爾——發動恐怖襲擊,以慶祝齋月(Ramadan)。