The Islamic State (ISIS) will be “100 per cent” defeated in Iraq and Syria by next week, US President Donald Trump has claimed as he boasted his administration’s new approach for directly confronting the terror outfit’s “wicked” ideology.
The ISIS currently holds only about 1 per cent of land in Iraq and Syria, the global coalition to counter ISIS announced late last year. However, the caliphate continues to hold territory in Afghanistan, Libya, the Sinai and West Africa.
“The ISIS has been decimated,” Trump has said. The United States military, its Coalition partners and the Syrian Democratic Forces have liberated virtually all of the territory previously held by the ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Trump said.
“It should be formally announced sometime probably next week that we will have 100 per cent of the caliphate. But I want to wait for the official word. I don’t want to say it too early,” Trump said on Wednesday in his address to the Ministers of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.
