The Combined Joint Task Force, also known as the CJTF and the Anti-ISIL Coalition, are an international task force lead by the USA to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, better known as ISIS or the Islamic State. The group is lead by Robert White and his deputies Gerald Strickland and Alexus Grynkewich, and utilises resources from NATO.
Members (list incomplete)[]
- United States of America
- Australia
- Canada
- Denmark
- France
- Jordan
- Belgium
- Saudi Arabia
- Turkey
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- Tunisia
- The Netherlands
- Germany
- Italy
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Iraq
History[]
The CJTF was founded by the United States Central Command in 2014 with the purpose of "degrading and destroying" the Islamic State, a task which it mostly accomplishes through strategic bombing campaigns against Islamic State strongholds such as Mosul and Raqqa (both of which have now fallen, in part due to the CJTF) and the training of Iraqi troops to combat Islamic State. As a result of the CJTF, approximately 6500 Iraqi forces completed training and 4500 are in training.
From August 2014 - August 2015, the CJTF flew 45,259 sorties and dropped about 5600 bombs on Islamic State-held territory. It also conducted 34, 464 airstrikes against the group from August 2014 - May 2019, although Robert White has admitted that around 1291 civilians were accidentally killed in these raids, alongside many Jihadist fighters. By June 2019, Islamic State had lost almost all of its strongholds in Iraq and Syria thanks to the CJTF and other organisations, and in October Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi committed suicide during a raid on the ISIS compound in Barisha, Syria.
On 5 January 2020, Robert White announced that CJTF had mobilized to protect the Iraqi military against the terror group Hezbollah, and as such would temporarily be unable to combat Islamic State, however he stressed that this was only temporary and that the CJTF would return to attempting to destroy ISIS as soon as possible.