President Donald Trump on Monday sought to end fears of an abrupt US pullout from Syria, saying the fight against the Islamic State group is not over and that withdrawal would be done in a “prudent” manner. The president has come under withering pressure both at home and in allied capitals after previous statements indicating that he considered the IS group vanquished and that he wanted US troops out of Syria imminently.

Trump’s new statement follows a trip by his national security adviser John Bolton to Israel in which he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that withdrawal would not happen before “ISIS is defeated and not able to revive itself.”