Trump’s terrorist promise
US President Donald Trump has told Australia and other anti-Islamic State coalition members the terror group’s caliphate in Syria and Iraq will be erased in the coming week.
His bold declaration came as he addressed representatives from Australia and more than 70 other nations forming the global coalition fighting ISIS.
“It should be formally announced sometime, probably next week, that we will have 100 per cent of the caliphate,” Trump told the gathering at the State Department in Washington DC.
“But I want to wait for the official word. I don’t want to say it too early.”
Anthony Sheehan, deputy secretary of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, led Australia’s delegation to the meeting.
US officials have said ISIS has lost 99.5 per cent of its ter- ritory in the region and holds on to less than five square kilometres in Syria near the Middle Euphrates River Valley.
Mr Trump described how he gave the go-ahead to wipe out the remaining remnants of ISIS when he made a surprise visit to Iraq last month and spoke to one of his generals.
“I said, ‘Go at it. How long ng will it take once you get startrted?’,” Trump said. “He said, aid, ‘Sir, one week’.
“He meant it, and it is about out one week since they really got going and they’ll be informing ng us very soon officially that it t is 100 per cent.”
Trump, who regularly went off his prepared speech during the address, said there would always be “sick” and “demented” ISIS members and a “remnant can be very dangerous”.
“We’ll search them out, ut, you’ll search them out and nd we’ll find them and hopefully ully they won’t be around very ery long,” Trump said.