President Trump declared in an interview Tuesday that the U.S. has defeated the Islamic State, even as the military says it will still take months before forces are driven from Syria.
“We’ve defeated ISIS,” Trump said in an interview with the Associated Press. “ISIS is defeated in all of the areas that we fought ISIS, and that would have never happened under President Obama.”
The comments came the same that day that a military spokesman told reporters in the Pentagon that it was unclear whether the remaining fighters could be wiped out by the end of this year.
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“We’ve still got about three months to go, and a lot can happen in 2018,” said Col. Sean Ryan, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve.
In May, U.S.-backed members of the Syrian Democratic Forces began Operation Roundup, meant to root out the last remaining members of ISIS in the Middle Euphrates River Valley in Syria, called the MERV.
“ISIS, however, remains a deadly adversary,” Ryan said. “The remaining fighters in the MERV are hardened combatants and have shown every indication of being willing to fight until the end.”
The terror group is estimated to control 2 percent of the territory it once controlled, the same number it did at the beginning of the offensive. Yet forces, Ryan said, are degrading the group’s capability by seizing its weapons and removing logistical support.
“They’re a resilient enemy. There’s no doubt about that,” Ryan said. “With the tunnels they have underneath and the tunnels that the oil companies left with food and supplies, they’re able to sustain.”
