WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Daesh will be defeated and eradicated from Syria by the end of 2017, Senior Adviser to the US Secretary of State Brian Hook said at an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday.
"Secretary [of State Rex] Tillerson has engaged in a great deal of personal diplomacy on Syria to defeat [Daesh]," Hook said. "And now [Daesh] as a physical caliphate will be defeated by the end of the year."
On Wednesday US Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk provided an update on the US-led coalition’s progress against Daesh in Iraq and Syria.
McGurk said 7.5 million people have now been liberated from Daesh and 2.6 million displaced Iraqis have returned home, but emphasized the need to accelerate the campaign and to intensify humanitarian and stabilization support in the wake of the terror group’s defeat.
The US-led coalition of some 70 nations is conducting airstrikes, ground-based and rocket-propelled artillery fire against Daesh targets in Syria and Iraq.
