Trump: End of Daesh ‘caliphate is in sight’
Saudi Arabia hails liberation of Raqqa
JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia has joined the international community in hailing the liberation of Raqqa from the grip of Daesh terrorists.
The Kingdom expressed happiness about the opposition forces’ victory over Daesh in Raqqa, according to a statement issued in Riyadh.
An official source at the Foreign Ministry said Saudi Arabia “considered the purification of Raqqa as an important step in the fight against terrorism.”
The source expressed the Kingdom’s hope that “this step will entail many serious steps to clear Syria, Iraq and the region of terrorism and extremism.”
In Washington, US President Donald Trump said the end of Daesh “caliphate is in sight” following the fall of the former Daesh stronghold, and a transition can soon begin to set conditions for lasting peace in Syria.
“With the liberation of ISIS’s (Daesh) capital and the vast majority of its territory, the end of the ISIS caliphate is in sight,” he said in a statement on Saturday.
“We will soon transition into a new phase in which we will support local security forces, de-escalate violence across Syria, and advance the conditions for lasting peace, so that the terrorists cannot return to threaten our collective security again,” he said.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson congratulated the Syrian people and the Syrian Democratic Forces on the liberation of Raqqa.
In a statement released on Friday, Tillerson said the US is proud to lead the 73-member global coalition in the fight against Daesh.
He said the coalition efforts had seen Daesh’s “so-called caliphate crumble across Iraq and Syria” but cautions that “our work is far from over.”
Tillerson said the “liberation of Raqqa is a critical milestone in the global fight ... to defeat these terrorists.”
New phase
French President Emmanuel Macron said the fight against Daesh had entered “a major new phase.”
He thanked allied countries involved in the battle to take back Raqqa, notably those who died “defending liberty in the face of terrorist horror.”
The French military has been involved in the coalition’s operations in Iraq since 2014 and in Syria since 2015, when Daesh extremists killed 130 people around Paris. France remains in a state of emergency and a target of Daesh threats.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian pledged €15 million ($17.8 million) by the end of the year in aid for civilians in Raqqa.
He said the liberation of Raqqa “deals a decisive blow to IS (Daesh), which made it the epicenter for orchestrating numerous attacks.”
Le Drian added that his “first thoughts go to the victims of this barbarism at the Bataclan, in the streets of Paris and Nice and elsewhere.”
A former defense minister himself, Le Drian warned that the challenges of post-Raqqa are considerable, “first in fighting pockets” of IS that remain and then “stabilizing liberated territories and finding a lasting political solution” for all components of Syrian society.