Donald Trump: All ISIS group’s territory in Syria retaken
President Donald Trump asserted on Thursday that the Daesh group has lost 100 per cent of the territory it once controlled in Syria, but US officials in Washington and accounts from people in Syria said a small sliver of land remains contested.
Trump made his statement to troops in Alaska during a refuelling stop on his way home from meeting in Vietnam with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
He noted that Daesh has been on the verge of losing its entire so-called caliphate in Syria for many months. “Now it’s 100 per cent we just took over, 100 per cent,” he said, adding, “The area, the land, we just have 100 per cent. We did that in a much shorter period of time than it was supposed to be.”
When asked about Trump’s comments, the Pentagon referred reporters to the White House.
Trump has jumped the gun on Daesh before. He said on February 15 that “the eradication” of the Daesh caliphate would be announced within 24 hours. It was not, and although Pentagon officials remain confident that Daesh is on the brink of defeat, the struggle is not over.
US and other western countries are backing a Syrian group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, comprised of local Kurdish and Arab fighters, who have battled Daesh for more than three years.
According to a US assessment, Daesh fighters and civilian residents are on in a small sliver of land along the Euphrates River. Officials say military operations have paused in order to separate civilians from the Daesh militants in that area.
The SDF does biometric checks on all adult-aged males to determine if they are Daesh fighters hiding in the population that is fleeing. Officials said that military operations to clear out the remaining Daesh fighters will likely restart soon and will probably take some time.
Iraqi militias said on Thursday they launched dozens of missiles targeting Daesh militants holed up in a Syrian village across the border. This is the area along the Euphrates that has been Daesh’s last stand.
Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan has characterised Daesh in Syria as on the brink of defeat, while cautioning that measures are required to prevent its revival and return to areas of Iraq and Syria that have been liberated since 2014.
“When we talk about what’s occurred in Syria recently, it’s been the decimation of the caliphate,” he said in Brussels on February 14.
Source: Khaleej Times
