“The bottom line is we are going to move in an accelerated and reinforced manner, throw them on their back foot. We have already shifted from attrition tactics where we shove them from one position to another in Iraq and Syria, to annihilation tactics where we surround them,” Mattis said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

Mattis said the U.S.’s goal is to prevent ISIS fighters from escaping strongholds in North Africa and the Middle East in order to prevent lone future attacks in western nations.

“Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to North Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa. We’re not going to allow them to do so. We’re going to stop them there and take apart the caliphate,” he said.