End of combat does not spell end of IS

Washington's top envoy yesterday called on allies to keep fighting the Islamic State group, saying that the end of major combat did not mean "enduring defeat" of the extremists.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke at a ministerial meeting in Kuwait of the US-led military coalition that has been fighting IS in Iraq and Syria, being held in parallel with a conference on reconstruction in Iraq.

The jihadist group has lost much of the territory it once controlled when it seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014.

"The end of major combat operations does not mean we have achieved the enduring defeat of ISIS," Tillerson said, using another acronym for IS. "ISIS remains a serious threat to the stability of the region, our homelands," he said.

He said IS had the capacity to re-emerge in liberated territories of Iraq and Syria or elsewhere in the world.