President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are both overly optimistic that the defeat of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) will come soon. The president remarked that ISIS "is falling fast" during the national security meeting on Thursday held at Pentagon in Washington, DC. Pence, on the other hand, twitted on the same day, posting that ISIS "is on the Run."

Pence was once of those present during the national security meeting. Officials who also attended were Defense Secretary James Mattis, Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford , Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Besides ISIS, they also discussed on the U.S. war in Afghanistan particularly on the issue whether to send at least 5,000 new U.S. troops to augment the current 8,500 U.S. troops there.

Pence takes to Twitter

It was after the meeting that the president remarked on the ISIS before a group of reporters. He said that the U.S. ground troops in Syria have been "doing very well against ISIS." He continued that the ISIS "is Falling Fast, very fast," according to the NBC News.

Pence was not interviewed by the group of reporters, but on Tuesday evening he posted on Twitter about Trump's accomplishments in the first six months, when the US economy became stronger with over 800,000 jobs added while "ISIS is on the run," and he boasted that "the world knows America is back."

US special operations in Syria

The US has special operations forces in Syria leading a coalition with various domestic forces fighting against ISIS and the Syrian government led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The US forces support the Kurd Syrian Democratic Forces fighting ISIS in Raqqa in northern Syria, and at the same time support insurgents against both ISIS and the Syrian government in southeast Syria. Russia and Iran back up the Assad government. After declaring victory in Mosul this month, the US-led coalition is now concentrating on liberating Raqqa, the self-proclaimed caliphate of the ISIS.

Military analysts said Raqqa is easier to take than Mosul.

After the meeting, Mattis, Tillerson and Dunford subsequently briefed the members of the House at Capitol Hill on the US campaign against ISIS. The Senate was briefed on the same agenda on Wednesday. Trump already gave a go-signal to Mattis to send more troops to Afghanistan but according to a Pentagon source there is yet no definite date when the decision would be made on the matter.

US forces in Afghanistan

The US forces have been supporting the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, or ANDSF, under NATO's mission fighting against the ISIS-supported Taliban for 15 years now. The US estimated that the Taliban presently controls only about 10 percent of the Afghanistan territory. But there are insurgent activities in 14 of the country's 34 provinces, according to the Voice of America News.
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