The U.S. is joining Kurdish and Arab forces to begin an offensive to annihilate the Islamic State terror group.
U.S. coalition forces are honing in on Raqqa, Syria, the so-called caliphate or capital of the Islamic State.
"Our strategy right now is to accelerate the campaign against ISIS," Defense Secretary James Mattis recently told CBS' "Face the Nation."
Mattis went on to say that the U.S. is beginning to change their tactics to aim at completely destroying the Islamic State’s presence in the region.
"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," he said.
A major battle is currently underway in Raqqa, reports CBN News. The Islamic State seized control of Raqqa in 2014, when they took control of many areas in the Middle East, imposing their violent rule.
"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," concluded Mattis.
Photo courtesy: ©Thinkstock/AbdukadirSavas
Publication date: June 13, 2017
