Iraqi PM predicts three months to defeat ISIS in his country

Iraq’s prime minister said Tuesday he thinks it will take three months to drive the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) out of his country, according to Reuters.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was responding to an assessment from the American commander of coalition forces that it will take at least two more years to fully eliminate the terrorist group from Iraq and Syria.

“The Americans were very pessimistic,” al-Abadi said, according to Reuters. “They used to talk about a really long period, but the remarkable successes achieved by our brave and heroic fighters reduced that. I foresee that in Iraq it will take three months.”

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In an interview with The Daily Beast published Monday, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend declined to give specific timelines for the ISIS fight, but predicted at least two years of clearing the group from Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, as well as scattered remnants in the deserts of the countries.

Al-Abadi has sometimes given optimistic estimates of the ISIS fight. He’s previously said Mosul would be retaken by the end of the year.

But with just days left in the year, the Mosul campaign continues, with advancements slowed as forces pushed into urban areas with more potential for civilian casualties and took a planned pause to recuperate.

The fight to retake Mosul started in October, and within weeks, Iraqi special forces entered city limits from the east. Iraqi forces have yet to penetrate the western section of the city.

Mosul is the last major Iraqi city under ISIS’s control, and retaking it would be a major blow to the terrorist group.

But ISIS would still hold pockets of territory in the country, and U.S. officials have said they expect ISIS to continue operating as an insurgency once it loses its territory.

The Mosul fight is being carried by about 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish peshmerga and tribal militia fighters. They are backed by U.S.-led coalition airpower, as well as more than 100 U.S. troops embedded with Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

There are more than 5,000 U.S. troops deployed to Iraq on a permanent basis and an estimated 800 to 900 more who are deployed on a temporary basis.

One unknown in the future of the fight is what changes President-elect Donald Trump will make to the U.S. role, if any. Trump has said both that the has a secret plan to defeat ISIS and that he’ll ask his generals to craft a plan within 30 days of his taking office.

In November, al-Abadi said Trump promised in a post-election call to increase U.S. support for Iraq in the fight against ISIS.

“I think it is in the interest of the United States and Iraq to keep this relationship,” al-Abadi said. “In my telephone call with President-elect Trump, he assured me that the U.S. support will not only continue, but it is going to be increased. So, I think I am going to be looking forward to more U.S. support.”