Top general: At least two more years of fighting ISIS

Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of the coalition troops in Iraq, believes it might take two years to clear the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria from its Raqqa and Mosul strongholds and stomp out remaining fighters, he told The Daily Beast. 

He did not, however, commit to a specific timeline in the sit-down interview published Monday. 

Townsend said Iraqi forces have shown evolution on the battlefield against ISIS. For example, the army is learning to send its tanks into urban city battles, something U.S. forces had to learn the hard way. 

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“Quite honestly, I don’t think we trained them to do that,” he said. “They are learning to do it in combat.”

The two-year estimate comes in contrast to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to eliminate ISIS “very, very quickly.” Trump had stated throughout the campaign that he had a secret plan to defeat ISIS rapidly, but when he eventually revealed his plan, it was to ask generals to submit their own plans within 30 days of his taking office. 

“I don’t think they have a strategy yet,” confidant Newt Gingrich said of Trump’s team on the Christmas edition of Fox News Sunday. “I think they know, which is important, that they are going to need a strategy.”