Washington, May 25 (RHC)-- The purported U.S. military campaign against the Daesh (ISIL)  terrorist group in Syria and Iraq has cost Washington an average of $11.7 million per day ever since it started on August 8, 2014, a new Pentagon estimate shows.

The total cost of war on Daesh was $7.2 billion as of April 15, according to the report which was published over the weekend.  The daily cost stood at $9.1 million about a year ago, a few months before Russia started a similar campaign in Syria against Daesh upon a request from Damascus.  The U.S. and a number of its allies, however, launched their campaign without any authorization from Damascus or the United Nations.

The Pentagon said in its report that as of May 10, the U.S.-led coalition had carried out a total of 12,199 strikes, with 8,322 of them in Iraq and 3,877 in Syria.  However, the effectiveness of those strikes have been repeatedly questioned by Iraqi and Syrian officials.

The report came out after the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment to the country’s 2017 military bill that would require the Pentagon to inform US taxpayers about the cost of operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.  The $610 billion legislation was approved in a 277-147 bipartisan vote on Wednesday and awaits the Senate’s confirmation before heading to President Barack Obama’s desk for signing.

The White House has threatened to veto the bill over the Republican attempts to shift $18 billion from the budget’s $59 billion war fund to cover expenses in the base military budget.