President Trump says Islamic State militants no longer control any territory in Syria, but airstrikes and sporadic fighting continue.

Trump touts victory in five-year campaign, but airstrikes continue

WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.» Islamic State militants no longer control any territory in Syria, President Donald Trump proudly announced Friday, although the U.S. was still launching airstrikes and sporadic fighting continued on the ground against the group’s holdouts.

“It’s about time,” Trump exclaimed on an airport tarmac in Florida. He held up maps indicating the territory once held by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria had shrunk to nothing.

Elimination of the last Islamic State stronghold in Baghouz in eastern Syria would mark the end of the militants’ selfdeclared caliphate, which at its height blanketed large parts of Syria and Iraq. The campaign to take back the territory by the U.S. and its partners has spanned five years and two U.S. presidencies, unleashed more than 100,000 bombs and killed untold numbers of fighters and civilians.

Controlling territory and assets — such as oil facilities — has given the militant group a stream of revenue and a place from which to launch attacks around the world. However, if history is a guide, the reconquering of Islamic State-held territory could prove a short-lived victory unless Iraq and Syria fix a problem that gave rise to the extremist movement in the first place: governments pitting one ethnic or sectarian group against another.

Trump has been teasing the victory for days, most recently Wednesday, when he said the milestone would be achieved by that night. On Friday, after a flight to Florida, Trump held up a map to supporters cheering him on the tarmac. Then he turned to reporters standing nearby.

“Here’s ISIS on Election Day,” he said, linking coalition gains since then to his presidency. He pointed to a swath of red signifying the group’s previous territorial hold, and then to a version without any red, “Here’s ISIS right now.”

But Trump appeared to be overstating his administration’s contribution to the anti-Islamic State fight. A close-up of the map showed that he was displaying the group’s footprint at a high point in 2014, not Election Day 2016, by which point the U.S.-backed campaign was well underway.

And American officials familiar with the situation in Syria said that the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces were still battling remaining Islamic State fighters who were holed up in tunnels along river cliffs in Baghouz.