James Mattis: Military using 'annihilation tactics' against ISIS

Source: Washington Examiner | May 28, 2017 | Todd Shepherd

Defense Secretary James Mattis said U.S. forces are using “annihilation tactics” in their fight against the Islamic State.

“We have already shifted from attrition tactics where we shove them from one position to another in Iraq and Syria to annihilation tactics where we surround them,” Mattis said on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation.’ “Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to north Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa, we are not going to allow them to do so. We are going to stop them there and take apart the caliphate.”

When asked whether the faster pace might have been responsible for 100 civilian deaths after a U.S. bombing of Mosul, Mattis said, “The American people and the American military will never get used to civilian casualties.”

But he added that the military found residue in the area that was not consistent with the U.S. bomb materials, leading officials to believe the Islamic State had created a munitions stockpile in a residential area.

Mattis believes the Islamic State has been greatly weakened but refused to put any timeline of the fight, only saying that it will be a long one. But he added the administration is keeping an eye to any successor groups.

“We have had success on the battlefield, we have freed millions of people from being under their control and not one inch of that ground that ISIS has lost has ISIS regained,” Mattis said. “However, there are larger currents, there are larger confrontations in this part of the world and we cannot be blind to those.”

Moving further east to a different theater, Mattis said that conflict with North Korea, “would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.”

Mattis said because North Korea was a threat to so many of their neighbors, “it would be a catastrophic war if this turns into combat, if we are not able to resolve this situation through diplomatic means.”

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