by Matthew Rusling
WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- While U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to get rid of the Islamic State (IS) once and for all, the radical group is already on the run due to increased pressure over the past year, an expert said in an interview with Xinhua.
Trump reiterated promises to defeat the group after the recent deadly attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, which killed 12 and injured dozens more innocent people. The billionaire president-elect has blasted outgoing President Barack Obama for still not having defeated IS in the radicals' Middle East stronghold.
But Wayne White, former deputy director of the State Department's Middle East Intelligence Office, said actually most of the heavy lifting has already been done, and IS appears to be on its way out.
Ongoing U.S. and coalition aerial bombardment, plus U.S.-backed efforts on the ground by Syrian Kurds, Iraqi Kurds, the Iraqi Army, Sunni Arab Iraqi tribes, Iraqi Shi'a militias, and most recently the Turkish Army in one area, have vastly reduced IS' original territory and seriously degraded its combatant forces and cut it off from abroad, White said.
"Once Mosul is cleared -- the only truly large urban area remaining under (IS) control -- the going will be far easier in Iraq," he said.
Read the full story at Xinhua