The United States dropped more weapons on Afghanistan in March 2018 than it did in Syria and Iraq that month, a first since the commencement of the 2014 US anti-Daesh campaign in Iraq and Syria, Operation Inherent Resolve.
Last month, American aircraft dropped 339 munitions on Afghanistan, mainly bombs, according to the US Air Force's monthly strike report, eclipsing the combined total of 294 from Syria and Iraq.
While March saw the lowest figure for weapons use thus far in Inherent Resolve, the number of weapons dropped on Afghanistan during that month was the highest for any March in the past five years.
The shift in US priorities underscored by the airstrike report speaks to the US' evolving battle against Islamists in the Middle East, which has continued without interruption since the late-2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
Daesh has been largely defeated in Iraq and Syria since the US-backed offensives in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, once the self-declared capital of the so-called Islamic State. More than 80 percent of Raqqa was left uninhabitable following the US-Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) operation, while six of the 44 districts in western Mosul were destroyed, according to the United Nations. Every district in Mosul received damage that was at least ‘light,' or ‘moderate.'
The fall of the extremist group in Syria, however, was followed by an invasion of Kurdish-held territory in the north by the Turkish government and…
