Mr. Obama on Friday ordered up to 50 special forces to work with Kurdish troops in northern Syria against the Islamic State.
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But In Syria, efforts to battle jihadists 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.
Activists say suspected Russian warplanes have bombed the outskirts of Islamic State-held Palmyra, sending smoke rising out of an area that includes a historic castle overlooking the Syrian city’s Roman ruins.
“There’s a sense of momentum…Things are beginning to ripen for people to make different choices than they’ve been making”, the Obama administration official said, without commenting on the Central Intelligence Agency program.
Obama had hoped the strikes in Syria would be complimented by a ground force trained by Americans elsewhere in the region. They could also help coordinate air strikes from the ground, the officials said.
Congressional Democrats, who had previously decried the U.S. involvement in Syria without the legal authorization of Congress, condemned the announced plans as an escalation under an already-thin legal authority for USA military action against the Islamic State group.
Today, as the Islamic State group controls a part of Syria and is proving resistant to the thousands of coalition airstrikes, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday that the move to deploy USA commandos was “not a decision to enter into Syria’s civil war”. “[White House spokesperson Josh] Earnest said the new mission in Syria was open ended and did not rule out the possibility of sending additional special forces troops into Iraq”.
“This is a risky place on the globe and they are at risk, and there’s no denying that”, said Earnest, who repeatedly rejected the idea that the deployment would constitute a ground combat mission, which Obama has long rejected as a solution in Syria.
On Capitol Hill, a few lawmakers greeted the troop announcement with dismay.
His recommendation sounds similar to that of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who said he fears a deployment of up to 50 troops in Syria could be just the beginning of a larger commitment.
“In our effort to degrade and destroy ISIL, the President has reiterated that it is not in our national interest to send US combat troops into yet another ground war in the Middle East”, Hirono said in an October 30 press statement.
In other words, the Russians are in a military partnership with Syria their joint forces have every legal right to direct combat action against all enemies including the USA military.
“On the other hand, it’s also too little too late”, she told Fox.
The YPG was accused of war crimes in a recent report by Amnesty global, which documented allegations that the group forcibly displaced Arabs and Turkmens and burned down villages perceived as cooperating with its opponents.
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Last week, Dunford met with his top commanders during a stop in Iraq, and told them to broaden their thinking and map out new ways the U.S.-led coalition can put more pressure on the Islamic State fighters. A video posted earlier on Youtube announced the offensive in southern Hasaka, and showed several dozen men in fatigues standing outdoors with yellow flags and banners carrying the name of the Democratic Forces of Syria in Arabic and Kurdish.
