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Like the Islamic State's stronghold of Mosul in Iraq, Raqqa is heavily fortified and the coalition is bracing for a gritty, months-long fight through dense urban neighborhoods. "We're not attempting to dictate political outcomes nor is it long-term reconstruction where projects are chosen by outsiders often with no connection to the local community, costing and often wasting billions of dollars." "Stabilization is not nation building," McGurk added, using a term that's become synonymous with the mostly fruitless, years-long military occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Establishing local police forces will be an important piece of that, but so will restoring water and electricity. The focus, he said, is on low-cost, locally led projects that will enable displaced people to return home. Such planning is underway, McGurk said, but there is much that's yet to be resolved. "I think what we'll see is the local security forces, police, that sort of organization that can handle it. Police can't handle a force that's driving tanks and using artillery, or has thousands of fighters in mobile vehicles that allow them to range far and wide." And there's also the matter of stabilizing these areas once ISIS is gone. "What will it look like when we say that we've got success?" Mattis said.
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military advisers and American firepower, thousands of Arab and Kurdish fighters have nearly encircled the city, but Mattis declined to offer an assessment beyond to say it will be difficult once local forces enter Raqqa, and that he intends to afford commanders the time they need to completely isolate those inside so they cannot flee. It's also unclear when the group's de facto capital in Raqqa might fall, an eagerly awaited development that would be seen as a symbolic victory for the coalition and a blow to ISIS given its ambition to establish a caliphate. troops at the point of a gun making that happen." There's got to be a political solution to the larger issues there. That's not our intent," Mattis replied when asked whether American personnel could remain in Syria indefinitely. Mattis is said to be negotiating plans for leaving a residual force spread between various Iraqi military facilities, but he indicated Friday a desire to avoid an open-ended commitment in Syria where, combined with the Islamic State's murderous tyranny, a ferocious civil war has displaced millions.
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There are fewer than 10,000 Americans spread between Syria and Iraq, with thousands more deployed close by in Jordan and Kuwait. It's unclear, for instance, the extent to which U.S. Joseph Dunford, and the ISIS coalition's presidential envoy, Brett McGurk. The secretary was flanked by his top general, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mattis addressed the Pentagon press corps to explain how the U.S.-led coalition has endeavored to meet President Donald Trump's directive, issued at the beginning of his administration, to bring greater force to bear on ISIS in Syria and Iraq and, it is hoped, to disrupt the group's ability to gain a foothold elsewhere. "By taking the time to deconflict, to surround and then attack, we carry out the annihilation campaign so we don't simply transplant this problem from one location to another." "The foreign fighters are the strategic threat should they return home to Tunis, to Kuala Lumpur, to Paris, to Detroit. WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's approach to defeating the Islamic State is now defined as merciless annihilation, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday, summarizing what's become a more aggressive effort in Syria, Iraq and beyond to prevent the group's foreign fighters specifically from escaping its strongholds once local allies have them cornered.