U.S. military officials and accounts from those on the ground confirm the group continues to hold a sliver of land along the Euphrates River
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses an audience of service members at a military base in Anchorage, Alaska, on Feb. 28, 2019.President Donald Trump asserted on Thursday that the Islamic State group has lost 100 per cent of the territory it once controlled in Syria, but U.S. officials in Washington and accounts from people in Syria said a sliver of land remains contested.
He noted that IS 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.”Trump has jumped the gun on IS before. He said on Feb. 15 that “the eradication” of the IS caliphate would be announced within 24 hours.
According to a U.S. assessment IS 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 IS militants in that area. Iraqi militias said Thursday they launched dozens of missiles targeting IS militants holed up in a Syrian village across the border. This is the area along the Euphrates that has been IS’s last stand.Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan has characterized IS 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.
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