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US-backed #Syria|n Democratic Forces "have pushed into the town of #Hajin" - the last #ISIS stronghold in Syria - in the past 48 hours, per @StateDept's @brett_mcgurk, adding "The end of #ISIS will be a much more long term endeavor...No on is declaring mission accomplished."pic.twitter.com/nO0InFyb0F
"We're at a point in the campaign where we're really looking ahead to make sure we can endure, sustain all these gains" per @brett_mcgurk "The big focus of that is stabilization...this will really take a period of years" Notes 4 million #Iraq|is have returned to their homes
"We're down to the last 1% in the conventional military fight" @brett_mcgurk says of #ISIS in #Syria "We are preparing ourselves for the longer term and we feel pretty confident those pieces are getting into place"
"We got it to a point where almost every #ISIS fighter is wearing a suicide bomb, a suicide vest, the extent of IED emplacements, it's very very difficult fighting, so it's taking some time" per @brett_mcgurk Adds almost 1400 civilians have fled #Hajin in last week or so
"It's going to take time but it will get done. It's a very difficult campaign" @brett_mcgurk says of effort to oust #ISIS from its last #Syria stronghold
"The military objective is the enduring defeat of #ISIS" per @brett_mcgurk "And if we've learned one thing over the years, the enduring defeat of a group like ISIS means you can't just defeat their physical space & then leave"
"You have to make sure the internal security forces are in place to ensure that those gains, security gains are enduring" per @brett_mcgurk when asked how long coalition will stay in #Syria "So that will take some time"
"Areas we have cleared of #ISIS, they have not returned to claim physical space" per @brett_mcgurk "There are clandestine cells. No one is saying they are going to disappear. Nobody is that naive"
"I think it's fair to say Americans will remain on the ground after the defeat of the caliphate, until we have the pieces in place to ensure that that defeat is enduring" per @brett_mcgurk re #Syria
"I just try to stay away from numbers" @StateDept's @brett_mcgurk says when asked about how #ISIS fighters are left "The numbers have been all over the place...It's not numbers. It's capabilities," which he says are "significantly degraded"
"There is a significant concentration of the most hardened #ISIS fighters in that little splotch of territory" @brett_mcgurk says of #Hajin #Syria "A couple of thousand hardened fighters remain in that area"
"Ballpark we're talking a period of months" to defeat #ISIS in #Hajin stronghold, per @brett_mcgurk
#ISIS leader Abu Bakr al #Baghdadi, "He is in deep, deep hiding at best" per @StateDept's @brett_mcgurk "There have been times we thought he was no longer around and he would issue an audio tape, so it's hard to say" if he's alive "Know for sure, he was in very very deep hiding"
"We have managed, thanks to the great work our folks are doing out there, to target and capture and detain some of his closest associates" per @brett_mcgurk on #ISIS leader #Baghdadi "If he's still w/us, I don't think it will be for too much longer"
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