U.S. official: Islamic State 'feels threatened' by U.S.-led forces

 

 Islamic State militants are repositioning forces in its defacto capital in Syria in response to increasing military pressure from coalition airstrikes and ground forces growing in effectiveness.
"We know this enemy feels threatened, as they should," Col. Steve Warren, a coalition military spokesman in Baghdad, said Friday.
A group of U.S.-backed rebel forces are making progress in seizing territory in northeastern Syria from the Islamic State, slowly isolating Raqqa, the defacto capital of......

 the Islamic State's self-declared caliphate.

Warren said the military has received reports that the Islamic State, which is also called ISIS or ISIL, has moved its forces and equipment around in response to the airstrikes and successes by ground forces.

"ISIL understands that their days are increasingly numbered," Warren said. "We are going to continue to keep this pressure on them and and we expect to see them collapse eventually."
Still, any offensive in Raqqa is far from imminent, analysts say. Kurdish forces, who are among the most effective at battling the Islamic State, are reluctant to leave their own regions to attack the Islamic State in Raqqa. Sunni Arabs are joining the fight against the Islamic State, but not in large enough numbers to be able to seize Raqqa.
"It's a manpower problem," said Andrew Tabler, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.