WarSclerotic

WASHINGTON (AP) — US President Donald Trump predicted Wednesday that the Islamic State group will have lost by next week all the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria.

He said the US will not relent in fighting remnants of the extremist organization despite his decision to withdraw US troops from Syria over the objections of some of his most senior national security advisers.

The president told representatives of a 79-member, US-led coalition fighting IS that the militants held a tiny percentage of the vast territory they claimed as their “caliphate.”

“It should be formally announced sometime, probably next week, that we will have 100 percent of the caliphate,” Trump said.

US officials have said in recent weeks that IS has lost 99.5 percent of its territory and is holding on to fewer than 5 square kilometers in Syria, or less than 2 square miles, in the villages of the Middle Euphrates River Valley, where the bulk of the fighters are concentrated.

But there are fears the impending US pullout will imperil those gains. Trump told coalition members meeting at the State Department that while “remnants” of the group were still dangerous, he was determined to bring US troops home. He called on coalition members to step up and do their “fair share” in the fight against terrorism.

President Donald Trump speaks at the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS meeting at the State Department in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Even as Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the withdrawal decision, which shocked US allies and led to the resignations of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the US envoy to the anti-IS coalition, Brett McGurk, some military leaders, renewed their concerns.

While the withdrawal would fulfill a Trump goal, top military officials have pushed back for months, arguing IS remains a threat and could regroup. US policy had been to keep troops in place until the extremists are completely eradicated. Fears that IS fighters are making a strategic maneuver to lay low ahead of the US pullout has fueled criticism that Trump telegraphed his military plans — the same thing he accused President Barack Obama of doing in Afghanistan.

Pompeo told the coalition that the planned withdrawal “is not a change in the mission” but a change in tactics against a group that should still be considered a menace.

“In this new era, local law enforcement and information sharing will be crucial, and our fight will not necessarily always be military-led,” he said. Trump’s announcement “is not the end of America’s fight. The fight is one that we will continue to wage alongside of you.”

He added: “America will continue to lead in giving those who would destroy us no quarter.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, center, shakes hands with Kosovo’s Foreign Minister Behgjet Pacolli, with Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohamed Alhakim, between them, after a family photo during the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS meeting, at the State Department, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Yet senior military officials acknowledged to Congress on Wednesday that the pullout would complicate their efforts.

Owen West, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, told the House Armed Services Committee that he shared Mattis’ objections. West answered, “No, sir,” when asked by a lawmaker if he thought Mattis was wrong to disagree with the withdrawal.

At the same hearing, Maj. Gen. James Hecker, vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the withdrawal means “it is going to be difficult to keep up the pressure” on IS. “There will be a decrease in the amount of pressure that we will be able to apply,” he said.

“The concern is if we move our forces out of Syria that that may take some pressure off of the ISIS forces in Syria,” Hecker said. “So our mission is to try to figure out how we can continue to keep the pressure on in Syria without any boots on the ground.”

Hecker said others would have to carry the burden once the U.S. left. He did not offer specifics.

Pompeo called on the coalition to increase intelligence-sharing, repatriate and prosecute captured foreign fighters and accelerate stabilization efforts so IS remnants cannot reconstitute in Iraq, Syria or elsewhere. He said the fight is entering a new stage where those allied against IS must confront a “decentralized jihad” with more than military force.

In this Nov. 7, 2018, photo released by the U.S. Army, U.S. soldiers gather for a brief during a combined joint patrol rehearsal in Manbij, Syria. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Zoe Garbarino via AP)

Pompeo mentioned the suicide bombing claimed by IS that killed four Americans — two service members, a Pentagon civilian and a U.S. contractor — in the northern Syrian town of Manbij last month. Manbij was liberated from IS control in 2016.

The conference started hours after Trump, in his State of the Union address, lauded what he said was the near-complete victory over IS. He also reaffirmed his determination to pull out the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. He had said in December that the pullout would proceed quickly.

In liberated areas across Syria and Iraq, IS sleeper cells are carrying out assassinations, setting up checkpoints and distributing fliers as they lay the groundwork for an insurgency that could gain strength as U.S. forces withdraw.

Activists who closely follow the conflict in Syria point to signs of a growing insurgency. Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says IS still has 4,000 to 5,000 fighters, many likely hiding out in desert caves and mountains.

Defense officials believe many fighters have fled to ungoverned spaces and other pockets in the north and west.

A Defense Department watchdog report warned this week that even with the IS forces on the run, the group “is still able to coordinate offensives and counter-offensives, as well as operate as a decentralized insurgency.”

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — The Islamic State gunmen came out of hiding in the middle of the night and set up a checkpoint on a rural road in eastern Syria. For several hours, they stopped those passing and searched through their mobile phones to check their allegiances, until they vanished again into the desert.

One young man, an education worker, got through the checkpoint safely. But when he got to his destination in the next village, the threat was waiting for him. An IS loyalist told him: Don’t remove pro-IS graffiti from school walls or you will pay the price.

The incident, one of many similar ones in past weeks, sent a bigger message — the Islamic State group may have lost almost all its territory, but it hasn’t left.

The group’s once-sprawling caliphate has been reduced to a remote scrap of land in Syria’s eastern desert, where a few hundred battle-hardened fighters are making a final stand against US-backed forces.

But in liberated areas across Syria and Iraq, sleeper cells are carrying out assassinations, setting up flying checkpoints and distributing fliers as they lay the groundwork for an insurgency that could gain strength as US forces withdraw.

US President Donald Trump arrives to deliver the State of the Union address at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on February 5, 2019. (Doug Mills/POOL/AFP)

US President Donald Trump has vowed to withdraw American forces from Syria, saying the militants are all but defeated.

“As we work with our allies to destroy the remnants of ISIS, it is time to give our brave warriors in Syria a warm welcome home,” he said in his State of the Union address Tuesday, referring to the group by another acronym.

But his own Defense Department has warned that IS could stage a comeback in Syria within six months to a year if the military and counterterrorism pressure on it is eased. Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of US forces in the Middle East, told a Senate committee Tuesday that battlefield gains can only be secured by “maintaining a vigilant offensive,” saying IS still has “leaders, fighters, facilitators, resources and the profane ideology that fuels their efforts.”

He estimated there are between 1,000 and 1,500 IS fighters in the small area they still control, but said others have “dispersed” and “gone to ground.”

Activists who closely follow the conflict in Syria already point to signs of a growing insurgency.

Rami Abdurrahman, the head of Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says IS still has 4,000 to 5,000 fighters, many likely hiding out in desert caves and mountains.

The Observatory said the militants have assassinated more than 180 people since August, including commanders in the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed and Kurdish-led militia that drove the militants from much of northeastern Syria, and nearly 50 civilians working with them.

This frame grab from video posted online January 18, 2019, by supporters of the Islamic State group, purports to show a gun-mounted IS vehicle firing at members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, in the eastern Syrian province of Deir el-Zour, Syria. (Militant Photo via AP)

The campaign has unfolded across northern and eastern Syria, in areas where the militants were defeated months or even years ago. An IS bombing attack last month killed four US soldiers and contractors in Manbij — a town in northern Syria that was liberated in 2016.

In other areas, the group has adopted tactics that are less lethal but just as chilling.

Fliers appeared in a village in Syria’s oil-rich Deir el-Zour province last summer, warning residents that IS still controlled nearby oil fields and that “anyone found to steal from them… should only blame themselves.” Other fliers sparked a mass desertion by local volunteers for the SDF.

“It was unclear what would happen to (IS) in the future, but I think the US withdrawal in Syria increased the chances for an IS resurgence by manifold,” said Hassan Hassan, an expert on IS who is originally from eastern Syria and is now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

IS could also stage a resurgence in neighboring Iraq, where the group originated and where it has operated in various forms going back to the 2003 US-led invasion. The Islamic State of Iraq, a precursor, had been largely dismantled and held no territory when President Barack Obama withdrew American forces in 2011. Three years later, IS seized vast swaths of northern and western Iraq in a matter of days.

Syria is less hospitable for IS. The group’s brutality and foreign roots alienated many Syrians, and it faces competition from other Sunni insurgent groups, like the al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. But unlike Iraq, Syria has large, ungoverned areas opened up by the civil war. “Syria will remain in part a place where (IS) could retreat and hide because there is still space in Syria,” Hassan said.

The extremists have a long history of exploiting security vacuums, and may find another one in the coming months as US troops leave Syria.

This frame grab from video posted online January 18, 2019, by supporters of the Islamic State group, purports to show an IS fighter driving a car bomb during clashes with members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, in the eastern Syrian province of Deir el-Zour, Syria. (Militant Photo via AP)

Turkey views the Kurdish forces in the SDF as an extension of the insurgency it is battling at home, and has vowed to launch a military offensive against them. President Bashar Assad, who also has forces in the area, has vowed to bring all of Syria’s territory back under state control. An outbreak of fighting would sap forces from the struggle against IS and generate the kind of chaos in which the group thrives.

“Imagine what (could) happen if one third of Syria changes hands from one security apparatus to another,” Hassan said.

The experience of the education worker who was warned not to remove graffiti was documented by Omar Abou Layla, a Europe-based activist who runs DeirEzzor24, a media collective that reports from eastern Syria.

He says IS loyalists have infiltrated the Kurdish-run administration, exploiting both local Arab resentment at Kurdish rule and the Kurds’ eagerness to recruit Arab allies. He says his group has documented nearly 20 cases in which former IS civil servants have returned to their jobs. It has also documented a number of recent assassinations by IS, including the killing of an Arab SDF commander and a man who works in money transfers.

“Daesh will be there even if they vanish physically,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for IS. “There are cells everywhere.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran appears to have attempted a second satellite launch despite US criticism that its space program helps it develop ballistic missiles, satellite images released Thursday suggest. Iran has not acknowledged conducting such a launch.

Images released by the Colorado-based company DigitalGlobe show a rocket at the Imam Khomeini Space Center in Iran’s Semnan province on Tuesday. Images from Wednesday show the rocket was gone with what appears to be burn marks on its launch pad.

Iranian state media did not immediately report on the rocket launch, though such delays have happened in previous launches.

Iran has said it would launch its Doosti, or “Friendship,” satellite. A launch in January failed to put another satellite, Payam or “Message,” into orbit.

DigitalGlobe analysts said the images from Tuesday suggest Iran used a Safir, or “ambassador,” rocket in the launch. In the January launch, engineers used a Simorgh, or “phoenix,” rocket. It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the rocket choice.

The Doosti, a remote-sensing satellite developed by engineers at Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology, was to be launched into a low orbit.

The US alleges such launches defy a UN Security Council resolution calling on Iran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

In January, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged the first Iranian launch was actually “the first stage of an intercontinental missile” Iran is developing in violation of international agreements.

This Feb. 5, 2019, satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe shows a missile on a launch pad and activity at the Imam Khomeini Space Center in Iran’s Semnan province. Iran appears to have attempted a second satellite launch despite US criticism that its space program helps it develop ballistic missiles, satellite images released Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019 suggest. Iran has not acknowledged conducting such a launch. (DigitalGlobe, a Maxar company via AP)

Iran, which long has said it does not seek nuclear weapons, maintains its satellite launches and rocket tests do not have a military component. Tehran also says they don’t violate a United Nations resolution that only “called upon” it not to conduct such tests.

Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space.

Iran usually displays space achievements in February during the anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution. This year will mark the 40th anniversary of the revolution amid Iran facing increasing pressure from the US under the administration of President Donald Trump.

On Sunday, state media reported that Iran has equipped its most advanced, longest-range missiles, which can hit Israel and US bases in the Gulf, with new precision guided warheads.

According to the unsourced report in the Fars news agency, the new home-made guided warheads have now been attached to the Khoramshahr, a missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles.)

“The new generation of missiles with guided warheads has been named Khoramshahr 2 and they can be controlled until hitting the target and are able to carry warheads weighing nearly 2 tons,” the report said.

This picture taken on September 22, 2018 shows the long-range Iranian missile “Khoramshahr” being shown during the annual military parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the devastating 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, in the capital Tehran. (AFP PHOTO / STR)

The first generation of Khoramshahr was unveiled in 2017.  Iran says all of its missiles are designed to carry conventional warheads only and has limited their range to a maximum of 2,000 kilometers, although commanders say they have the technology to go further.

That makes them only medium-range but still sufficient to reach Israel or US bases in the Gulf.

Times of Israel Staff contributed to this report