The United States refused to put a timetable for the full withdrawal of its troops from Syria despite saying that ISIS is down to its last few hundred militants and less than a square kilometer of land in a battle for its final Syrian stronghold in Baghouz.
“We are just about finished with the campaign along the Euphrates to defeat” ISIS’ last territorial holdings, US envoy James Jeffrey said on Friday.
“They’re down to a few hundred fighters and less than a square kilometer of land,” Reuters quoted Jeffrey, the US Special Representative for Syria Engagement and Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, as saying.
But he warned that ISIS may have 15,000-20,000 armed adherents in Syria and Iraq.
Meanwhile, the US, France, Germany and the UK said on Friday in a joint statement on the 8th anniversary of the Syrian war that reaching a political solution is the only way to end the violence in the country.
“The military solution the Syrian regime hopes to achieve, with backing from Russia and Iran, will not bring peace,” the four countries said.
Eight years of war in Syria have left more than 370,000 people dead, including 112,000 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday.
According to the monitor, more than 21,000 children and 13,000 women were among the dead.
The conflict flared after unprecedented anti-regime protests in the southern city of Daraa on March 15, 2011.
