Pentagon spends US$1b on Islamic State fight
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 08 October, 2014, 4:17am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 08 October, 2014, 4:17am
Associated Press
The US made more than 200 air strikes over four hours against about a dozen militant targets in Syria in September. Photo: AP
The Pentagon has spent as much as US$1.1 billion on US military operations against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria since the mission began in mid-June, including more than US$62 million alone in navy air strikes and Tomahawk cruise missiles.
US Central Command said the navy had dropped roughly 185 munitions, including 47 cruise missiles launched from ships in the region. Central Command said air force fighter jets had far exceeded those numbers, launching close to 1,000 munitions. The data broke out the US$62 million spent on navy munitions, but provided no cost estimates for air force munitions.
The bulk of the navy costs were for the 47 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired by American warships in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea that targeted the Khorasan group, an al-Qaeda cell, in eight locations west of the city of Aleppo in Syria. The group was said to be plotting imminent attacks on American and Western interests, and it was one of the key targets two weeks ago when the US began air strikes into Syria.
The Pentagon has struggled to come up with specific cost figures for the Iraq and Syria operations. Officials say it has cost an average of US$7 million to US$10 million daily since June.
The costs of the operations began at a much lower rate in June then escalated as air strikes began in northern Iraq on August 8. In late August, the Pentagon said the cost was an average of US$7.5 million daily. The air strikes were expanded to Syria in September, prompting the latest, higher average estimates.
There are currently more than 1,300 US troops in Iraq, including security personnel, staff at two joint operations centres in Baghdad and Irbil, and advisory teams.
