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22:06 GMT
WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (KUNA) -- The end of the so-called Islamic State (IS) will be a "much more long-term initiative" despite that the "end of physical caliphate is clearly now coming into sight," Special Presidential Envoy for the Coalition to Counter IS Brett McGurk said Tuesday.
"Nobody working on these issues day to day is complacent. Nobody is declaring a mission accomplished. Defeating a physical caliphate is one phase of a much longer term campaign," McGurk told reporters.
He noted that stabilization efforts in Iraq and Syria will take "a period of years" even though the US has completed about 3,000 projects across Iraq and raised about a billion dollars.
Nearly four million Iraqis have returned home but 1.8 million have been displaced from the conflict. In Syria, McGurk said, "it's much more difficult" since the US will not work with the regime of President Bashar Al Assad.
"We're down to really the last 1 percent here in the conventional military fight. But we are positioning ourselves for the longer term. And we feel pretty confident those pieces are getting into place" McGurk said.
IS will have "clandestine cells in Iraq and Syria, they will have terrorist cells, they will be in hiding, they will have networks, but that's a very different situation than what we're (used) to seeing, in which they were threatening us," he noted. (end)
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