Trump Says US Likely to Announce Retaking 100% of Daesh Caliphate Next Week

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States will likely announce next week that all of the Daesh* terrorist group caliphate has been retaken in Syria and Iraq, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday.

"It should be formally announced, sometime probably next week, that we'll have 100 percent of the caliphate," Trump said during his remarks at a ministerial meeting of US-led coalition member states.

Earlier, US President said during his second State of the Union address that  It is time to return US troops deployed in Syria back home.

READ MORE: MSNBC Reporter Thinks US Troops in Syria Are Fighting Assad, not Daesh (VIDEO)

In December, Trump declared the Daesh terror group defeated in Syria and announced the US troop pullout from the country but gave no timeline.

Syria has been engulfed in an armed conflict since 2011, with the government forces fighting numerous terrorist organizations and armed opposition groups. Russia, along with Turkey and Iran, is a guarantor of the ceasefire in Syria. Moscow has also been providing humanitarian aid to residents of the crisis-torn country.

*Daesh (ISIL/ISIS/Islamic State/IS), a terrorist group banned in Russia and a wide number of other countries.