BAGHDAD (AP) — President Donald J. Trump has told Iraq’s prime minister that the U.S. is committed to the total defeat of the Islamic State militant group.
The White House says the president spoke with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Tuesday to congratulate him on recapturing the city of Mosul from IS fighters. The White House is calling the recovery of Iraq’s second largest city a “milestone.”
Mosul was captured by the militant group in June 2014 and had been under its control ever since. U.S.-backed coalition forces engaged in land and air operations in nine months of fighting that put all but a small sliver of the city back into the Iraqi central government’s control this week.
