US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the Iraqi and coalition forces were making tremendous strides in the fight against Islamic State militants and pledged to stand with the Iraqi people. Mattis, on his first trip to Iraq as Washington’s top defense official, is hoping to assess the war effort as US-backed Iraqi forces launched a new push to eradicate Islamic State militants from their remaining stronghold in the city of Mosul.
“I would just tell you that by, with, and through our allies is the way this coalition is going against Daesh (Islamic State). We’re going to continue to go after them until we destroy them and any kind of belief in the inevitability of their message. Their message is going to be proven to be false on the battlefield as well as how we deal with their mythology of somehow they are the brave new way. They are going to be shown to be at fault. They’re going to be shown to be exactly what they are which a bunch of murderous relics, to put it bluntly. So, the Iraqi army is in the fight with the coalition supporting them with full support, and as we go through this fight Daesh will not be over with, we all know that there will be more fights ahead. We’ll stick together. And as we look at the future, we are going to continue to stand by the Iraqi army and the Iraqi people who are fighting this enemy.”
Mattis is finalizing plans at Trump’s request to accelerate the defeat of the Islamic State and is expected to meet senior US and Iraqi officials in Iraq. His visit comes a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the ground offensive on western Mosul, where Islamic State militants are essentially under siege along with an estimated 650,000 civilians.