The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces expect a "fierce battle" with Islamic State terrorists who are still holed up in the group's last enclave in eastern Syria, Mustafa Bali, the head of the SDF media office, said Friday.
Bali's remarks followed U.S. President Donald Trump's assertion, Thursday, that the SDF had retaken 100% of the territory once held by Islamic State.
But Bali said Islamic State militants were still holed up in Baghouz, a village on the Iraqi border, and had not surrendered. "We won't storm the village and declare it liberated unless we have completely confirmed the departure of civilians."
U.S. President Donald Trump told American troops that U.S.-backed forces in Syria have retaken 100% of the territory once held by Islamic State terrorists, contradicting the commander of the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces, who said it would take another week.
"We just took over, you know, you kept hearing it was 90%, 92%, the caliphate in Syria. Now it's 100% we just took over, 100% caliphate," Trump told troops at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson during a refueling stop in Alaska. He was on his way home from meeting in Vietnam with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Earlier on Thursday, the commander of Syrian Democratic Forces, Gen. Mazloum Kobani, said in a video released to the news media that the SDF would be able to announce "the complete victory over Daesh [Islamic State] in a week."
When asked about Trump's comments, the Pentagon referred reporters to the White House.
In December, Trump announced that he was pulling all American troops out of Syria but last week he partially reversed course and agreed to keep a residual force of perhaps a few hundred troops as part of an international effort to stabilize northeastern Syria.
While the United States has withdrawn some troops, Trump responded to criticism of his move by deciding to leave some 400 U.S. troops in the country over the longer run: 200 to remain in the northeast as part of a multinational force and 200 to remain at an outpost in the southeast to counter Iranian influence.
The U.S. president said on Feb. 6 that he expected a formal announcement the following week that coalition forces had recaptured all territory previously held by Islamic State in Syria. That announcement has yet to be made.
U.S. 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 Islamic State for more than three years.
According to a U.S. assessment, Islamic State 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 terrorists in that area.
The SDF does biometric checks on all adult-aged males to determine if they are Islamic State fighters hiding in the population that is fleeing. Officials said that military operations to clear out the remaining Islamic State fighters will likely restart soon and will probably take some time.
Iraqi militias said Thursday they launched dozens of missiles targeting Islamic State terrorists holed up in a Syrian village across the border. This is the area along the Euphrates that has been the terrorist group's last stand.
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has characterized Islamic State 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 Feb. 14. "And we talk about that in a military context. So, ISIS, Daesh, they no longer hold geography. They no longer govern in the spaces they once held. Their finances have been annihilated. Their ability to communicate on social media has been destroyed. You know, in that regards, they've been defeated."
"Does that mean they've been eliminated? Are there remnants that are scattered or that are hiding in those communities? Well, they are. But that's the nature of the next phase: How do we maintain security? How do we keep them suppressed?"
