US President Barack Obama drew a barrage of criticism from both Republican leaders and his own Democratic party mates following his decision to deploy fewer than 50 Special Operations forces to Syria to lead the fight against hundreds if not thousands of battle-hardened Islamic State (ISIS) militants, various reports said. Carter denounced the Russian government for “doubling down on their longstanding relationship with [Syrian President] Assad”, and warned senators about the strengthening of Russian and Iranian influence over the US-installed Baghdad regime.
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“Our campaign is going to continue until liberating all the occupied areas in Hasakah by terrorist organization of Daesh and until restoring security and stability to the area”, the statement said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. But a truce remained elusive and the President’s military move was the latest incremental step into the expanding conflict in Syria and next-door Iraq. “There is a diplomatic one”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in Washington. It helped Iraqi forces rescue hostages last week, and Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler was killed, the first US combat death in that country since 2011.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that the USA decision to deploy special forces in Syria would make cooperation between the armed forces of the two countries more important.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been holding meetings in recent days with USA allies in the region and recently agreed to give Iran a role in the peace talks, which also include Russian Federation, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Carter did not rule out further special forces deployments to Syria if the initial one is successful. “Keep your eye on ISIS, keep your forces out of Russia’s way and yet enhance your profile after Moscow has raised theirs”.
Another source said a significant new shipment of TOWs had been delivered in October to what the United States believes are relatively moderate Sunni rebels based in northwest Syria who are fighting Russian-backed Syrian government forces.
The White House announced Friday that the United States is sending a few dozen troops into Syria – something President Obama told the nation time and again he’d never do.
“[This] marks a major shift in US policy – a shift that is occurring without congressional debate, is unlikely to succeed in achieving our objective of defeating IS and instead threatens to embroil the United States in Syria’s civil war”.
The USA has conducted special-operations raids in Syria before and is expected to carry out more unilateral raids.
Efforts in Syria have been plagued by the complexities of a civil war that has killed more than 240,000 people since March 2011 and prompted the most serious refugee crisis since World War II.
On Saturday, the Democratic Forces of Syria, a coalition of Arab, Christian and Kurdish factions in northern Syria, declared that they have started an operation to “liberate” areas south of the northeastern city of Hassekeh. “Now it’s air and ground and that makes it that much harder”. But a senior US defense official seemed to leave open the possibility of an increased USA ground presence. The phrase is evocative of the president’s legal training and his deep skepticism that US military power can bring lasting change to broken societies.
But over the past year, the number of USA troops in Iraq has expanded to about 3,300.
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The escalation of the Pentagon’s campaign against the Islamic State follows Obama’s announcement two weeks ago that he was reversing course and keeping American troops in Afghanistan beyond next year. But the train-and-equip program failed; Obama abandoned it this fall.
