President Trump said the Islamic State’s caliphate is over. That was news to troops on the ground.

By Louisa Loveluck
February 28 at 4:45 PM

BEIRUT — President Trump’s surprise announcement Thursday that “we just took over” the last Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria came as news to U.S.-backed forces leading the fight on the ground, spokesmen said.

Fighters and civilians have streamed out of the Syrian hamlet of Baghouz in recent weeks, surrendering to U.S.-backed troops as the battle to rid the Islamic State group of its territory grinds to an end.

“You kept hearing it was 90 percent, 92 percent, the caliphate in Syria. Now it’s 100 percent we just took over,” Trump told U.S. troops during a refueling stop in Alaska on Thursday. “That means the area, the land, we have 100 percent, so that’s good.”

More than 5,000 miles away in Syria, however, members of the U.S.-backed ground forces said they were surprised. The “final decision” is yet to be made, said Adnan Afrin, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

“It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true,” said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the most prominent group monitoring Syria’s seven-year war.

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