‘IS losing fighters to rival groups after pay cuts’

The ISIS’ recent defeats signify its worsening money problems, desertions and a dwindling pool of fighters with many of them joining rival militant groups after facing pay cuts, according to a media report.

Citing top analysts and monitoring groups, the Washington Post reported that the recent losses of the terror group are linked to its struggles to pay fighters and recruit new ones to replace those who have deserted, defected to other militant groups or died on the battlefield.

US-backed Kurdish and Arab forces have seized significant amounts of territory from the extremist group in the parts of Iraq and Syria where it declared a caliphate in 2014.

“These issues suggest that as an entity that is determined to hold onto territory, the Islamic State is not sustainable,” Jacob Shapiro, an expert on the Islamic State who teaches politics at Princeton University, was quoted as saying.

There appears to be a rise in the number of Islamic State fighters who have deserted or, in the case of the Syrian conflict, defected to other militant groups, Vera Mironova, an expert on armed groups in Syria and Iraq at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, was quoted as saying.

The salary and benefit cuts have caused “for-profit militants” in Syria to increasingly “look for better deals” with other armed factions, she said.