Baghouz, Syria — President Trump on Wednesday showed off two maps of Syria, one from Election Day 2016, with ISIS-held territory marked in red. The other shows that just a spec of it remains. The president said it will be “gone by tonight.”
Inside eastern Syria, the guns fell silent across the battlefield Wednesday. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said aside from a few “pockets of resistance,” ISIS is done.
After weeks of heavy fighting, it’s finally come down to a smouldering scrapheap on the banks of the Euphrates River. At least as long as CBS News has been here, there have been no sound of gunfire going in, or coming out.
SDF soldiers toured the camp of ISIS’ last stand, where they said they found an extensive network of tunnels below. So what comes next? Aside from cleaning up all of the destruction, the entire area has to be cleared of booby traps, in buildings and bombs in the road.
But already ISIS has transitioned into an insurgent group, launching ambushes and suicide bombings. As a territorial force, ISIS’ reign of terror over nearly 10 million people has come to an end. For the first time in more than four years, not a single ISIS flag is flying for as far as the eye can see.
