Thread by @rcallimachi

3. The attack - which officials are telling me may well be the single largest casualty event in combat for American forces in the fight against ISIS - comes as Vice President Mike Pence again describes ISIS as defeated:

https://twitter.com/amandawgolden/status/1085567630726057985

4. Not only is the group not defeated (three separate reports estimated that the terrorist group still has been 20,000 and 30,000 members just in Iraq and Syria) but there is data to indicate that ISIS has been emboldened by Trump's pullout announcement.

4. Not only is the group not defeated (three separate reports by the Pentagon Inspector General, by @UN & by @CSIS estimate that ISIS still has between 20,000 and 30,000 fighters just in Iraq and Syria - but there is data to suggest the group has become emboldened in recent weeks

5. This is at least the 6th major counterattack by ISIS in Syria in recent weeks, according to a US official. A leader of the American-backed Kurdish militia battling ISIS in Syria put it in hyperbolic terms in a DM to me: "All I know is that IS attacks like 3727638 times a day."