Al Jazeera: US says 200 troops to remain in Syria after forces' withdrawal
White House announcement comes after Trump discussed situation in Syria in phone call with Turkey's Erdogan.
The United States will leave around 200 troops in Syria for a period of time, the White House has announced, as President Donald Trump backed away from a complete withdrawal of forces from the war-torn country.
"A small peacekeeping group of about 200 will remain in Syria for a period of time," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Thursday.
The announcement came amid fierce criticism of Trump's decision in December to withdraw the 2,000 US soldiers fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Syria, with members of his own Republican Party blasting the move.
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WNU Editor: The Kurds are happy with this decision .... Syria Kurds evacuate civilians from Islamic State redoubt, hail Trump troop reversal (Reuters). More here .... Northern Syria administration says U.S. troop decision will protect area (Reuters). Turkey has accepted this U.S. presence, which tells me that their threat to invade north-eastern Syria to wipe out the Kurds was just a threat and nothing more. Syria and Iran are not going to happy with this continuing U.S. presence, but everyone else will be.
More News On The U.S. Keeping 200 Soldiers In Syria After Forces' Withdrawal
White House says US will keep 200 troops in Syria -- AP
Small US force to stay in Syria after troop withdrawal -- France 24
Syria war: US to leave 200 troops for peacekeeping after withdrawal -- BBC
US announces 200 American peacekeepers will be left in Syria after planned withdrawal -- ABC News Online
White House says 200 US troops to stay in Syria -- DW
3 comments:
I bet these 200 "peacekeepers" are air-ground controllers embedded with the Kurds to make sure American airpower backstop the Kurds.
I figured they would always be left behind since otherwise the Kurds get attacked from all directions. The US has a major airbase in Iraqi Kurdistan, so the means to give air support will always exist. The next question is how many of these peacekeepers stay in Al-Tanf near the nexus of the Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian border? I'll bet 50 or so.
For reference review the October 2001 Afghan intervention when a very small number of US CIA and special forces directed airstrikes against the Taliban. Their working alongside Northern Alliance ground troops destroyed the Taliban in a matter of 3 weeks and drove them to Pakistan. The major US invasion came later but the heavy lifting to dislodege the Taliban was done by just a few hundred air-ground controllers directing B-52's and tactical air against the Taliban.
Sure enough, NYT,
"The senior Trump administration official said the troops would be based in northeast Syria as well as at a small outpost in al-Tanf, in the country’s southeast, near its border with Iraq and Jordan. The official said the American forces would provide logistics, intelligence and surveillance to allies and would relay necessary information for directing airstrikes to targets, roles that have little to do with peacekeeping."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/world/middleeast/us-troops-syria-.html
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