United States President Donald Trump on Thursday indicated that the country would soon pull its military out of Syria. “We are knocking the hell out of ISIS,” Trump said at an event in Ohio. “We will be coming out of Syria, like, very soon.”

Trump said it was time “other people take care of it now”, and added, “We got to get back to our country where we belong, where we want to be.” He also complained about Washington wasting $7 trillion in wars in West Asia, to get “nothing” in return, Al Jazeera reported. The president promised to focus future US spending on building jobs and infrastructure at home.

Trump’s statement about pulling out American troops, however, contradicts his secretaries of state and defence, who earlier said the troops should stay in Syria for the foreseeable future, Politico reported.

In January, Rex Tillerson – who has since been fired from the post of secretary of state – argued that US forces must stay in Syria to prevent the Islamic State and Al Qaeda from returning. Secretary of Defense James Mattis has also said multiple times that the US must remain involved in Syria considering the presence of Russia and Iran, which have backed the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

The Syria war

Syria has been torn by a civil war that began in 2011. Ever since, rebel groups have been fighting to overthrow the Assad regime.

While the government is backed by Russia and Iran, the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia back the rebels.

The Islamic State has exploited the civil war to grab territory in both Syria and Iraq. The United States has more than 2,000 military personnel who are working with Kurdish and Arab militia groups to defeat the Islamic State.

Several thousand people have been killed in the past seven years. The war has also resulted in at least 61 lakh Syrians being internally displaced, while another 56 lakh have fled abroad, according to the BBC.