President Donald Trump made a surprise announcement during an infrastructure speech Thursday in Ohio, saying the United States would soon withdraw from Syria. “By the way, we're knocking the hell out of ISIS,” Trump said. “We're coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.

Trump spoke about U.S. operations in Syria during his speech to industrial workers in Ohio and lamented what he said was Washington’s waste of $7 trillion in Middle East wars. He also added U.S. forces were close to securing all of the territory that the Islamic State jihadist group once claimed. “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now,” he promised, to applause.

Trump did not say who the other people were who might take care of Syria, but Russia and Iran have sizable forces in the country to support Bashar Assad’s regime.

“Very soon — very soon we’re coming out. We’re going to have 100 percent of the caliphate, as they call it — sometimes referred to as ‘land’ — taking it all back quickly, quickly,” he said. “But we’re going to be coming out of there real soon. Going to get back to our country, where we belong, where we want to be.”

Trump's remarks echo his campaign-trail denunciations of U.S. involvement in the long-running Syrian civil war. During the campaign he frequently denounced the Obama administration's policy of arming rebels, some of them Islamist groups.

The United States has more than 2,000 military personnel in eastern Syria, working with local militia groups to defeat the extremist Islamic State group and regain ground for rebel factions that it sees as legitimate fighters against Bashar Al-Assad’s establishment.

It's also not clear whether Trump's on-stage policy announcement equates to an actual change in policy. On Thursday afternoon, Defense Department spokeswoman Dana White told reporters that "important work remains to guarantee the lasting defeat of these violent extremists."

The U.S. has also consistently taken the position that Assad needs to go and hence has supported rebel groups with arms and funding. The U.S. presence in Kurdish-dominated areas has deterred military action by Turkey, which invaded a small Kurdish-controlled area of northwest Syria this year to oust U.S.-allied fighters.

The president’s talk of a quick withdrawal comes as the Pentagon admits the offensive by U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters to retake the last two percent of territory held by ISIS in Syria has stalled. Kurdish military leaders and fighters who make up a large portion of the Syrian Democratic Forces have left the front lines of the battle against ISIS to fight against Turkish forces in the west.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 30, 2018 10:15 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).