Cairo (CNN) As the assault to retake ISIS's last enclave of territory in Syria continues, the top US general overseeing the fight against the terror group warned Monday that if the terror group loses that fight it "doesn't mean the end of the organization."

"Liberation of the terrain that ISIS holds is important, it's an important objective for us to take that away from them. But it doesn't mean the end of the organization," Gen. Joseph Votel, the head US Central Command, told reporters on Monday while on an official visit to Cairo, Egypt.

"We are going to have to continue to put military pressure on them. The Syrian Democratic Forces will and we will help them," he added, referring to the US-backed group of Kurdish and Arab fighters that have been America's principal ally in Syria.

But Votel acknowledged that putting pressure on ISIS will be made more challenging without the presence of the over 2,000 US troops currently in Syria, forces that President Donald Trump has ordered to be withdrawn.

"Putting military pressure on is always better, it's always easier when you are there on the ground, but in this case our President has made a decision and we are going to execute that and so it's my responsibility as the CENTCOM commander working with my chain of command to look at how we do that," he added, saying that in 2014, the US managed to support Syrian Kurds fighting ISIS without US troops on the ground.

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