Once again, the White House has prematurely declared ISIS’ former caliphate has been eliminated.
The ISIS caliphate is still not dead.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters on Friday that the Pentagon “made the call” that ISIS had lost all of its former territory in Syria, according to a White House press pool report.
“When we asked if the caliphate was 100 percent eliminated, Sanders repeatedly said, ‘Yes,'” the pool report says.
Sanders referred further questions to the Pentagon, which went radio silent when reporters started asking if Syrian Democratic Forces had cleared the last ISIS holdouts in Syria.
A spokesman for Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan confirmed that Shanahan was on Air Force One with President Donald Trump on Friday, but he declined to say whether Shanahan told the president ISIS physical caliphate had finally been wiped out.
