US military won't send additional warplanes for airstrikes on Islamic State targets, Pentagon says

The US military will not be sending any additional warplanes to conduct air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Pentagon says.

The US is relying mostly on warplanes already positioned in the region for its air war against the Islamic State, as opposed to dispatching a major buildup of aerial forces that happened in previous campaigns, the Washington Times reports.

A Pentagon official said that the United States had no plans to send more US aircraft into the war-hit nations.

US President Barack Obama has ruled out sending American ground troops into Iraq and Syria.

Dakota Wood, a military analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said that the administration's approach was the least risky in hazarding American lives or committing to a protracted ground campaign, but was also least likely to change conditions on the ground.

He added that air without ground was a terribly expensive way to deliver explosives that have minimal lasting effect, especially when the enemy possessed very little that they were critically dependent upon that could also be targeted by air.