The Pentagon Says It Has Killed 20,000 ISIS Fighters—and Just 6 Civilians

Smoke from an apparent airstrike billows over the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar on November 12, 2015. Bram Janssen/AP

Asked about his critics' calls for the United States to use more force in its air war against ISIS, President Barack Obama rejected the idea of expanded airstrikes in an interview with NPR on Monday. "If the suggestion is is that we kill tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians and Iraqis, that is not who we are and that would be a strategy that would have enormous backlash against the United States," he said. He also questioned the idea of "carpet bombing" ISIS, which had been suggested by Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). "You bomb ISIL," Obama said, using the administration's preferred acronym for the so-called Islamic State. "You're not trying to bomb innocent people."

Source: Mother Jones