
























In late 2018, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw almost all of its troops from Syria, saying the Islamic State terror group had been defeated and there was no longer a reason to deploy U.S. forces in the war-torn nation.
The announcement led to the resignation of former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who reportedly felt the drawdown was premature.
In the months since Trump announced the defeat of IS, he has wavered on whether the group has been vanquished. Sometimes he predicted that total victory would come in hours or days, while other times he has doubled down on the claim that the IS threat has been eliminated.
Here's a chronology of claims concerning the demise of Islamic State.