Syria to announce 'complete victory' over ISIL, says SDF chief

Damascus [Syria], Mar 1 (ANI): Syria will announce "a complete victory" over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terror group in a week, said Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander in Chief Mazloum Kobani on Thursday (local time).
"We will announce after a week a complete victory over Daesh (ISIL)," Aljazeera quoted Kobani as saying.
Kobani made the remark while meeting 24 Kurdish leaders who recently after they were held by ISIL.
Meanwhile, while speaking to troops at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, United States President Donald Trump said: " US-backed forces in Syria have retaken 100 per cent of the territory once held by Caliphate and ISIL."
The Islamic State (ISIS) has been reduced to just 700 square metres in Syria, as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched a major offensive last week to eliminate the terror outfit from the war-torn country, a top commander overseeing the operations said on Saturday.
Syria has been embroiled in a civil war since 2011. The grim situation was further aggravated with the establishment of ISIS in Syria and Iraq in 2014, when its de facto leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a "Caliphate".
At its peak, the terror outfit controlled huge parts of Iraq and Syria with a population of over 10 million people. However, since 2017, the group has been losing hold on major territories in both countries to US-backed military forces. (ANI)