Washington insists it was a coincidence that reinforcements have been despatched earlier than the collapse of President Bashar Assad’s authorities
The US has revealed that it has greater than doubled its army presence in Syria, with a Pentagon spokesman saying that he “only in the near past discovered” there have been in reality roughly 2,000 American forces deployed within the nation, slightly than 900 troops as beforehand reported.
For years, the Pentagon had maintained that “about 900” US troops have been stationed within the nation, and officers continued to repeat this determine even after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad on December 8.
Nevertheless, throughout a press convention on Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder mentioned that “we just lately discovered that these numbers [are] increased.”
“Given the distinction in what we’ve been briefing and what the precise quantity is, I simply felt that it was essential to get you that data,” Ryder mentioned, citing diplomatic and operational safety sensitivities as a part of the explanation for the delay in disclosure.
The Pentagon spokesman defined that the extra troops had been in Syria “at a minimal, months” on a rotational foundation, which has been “occurring for some time.”
He insisted that the rise was not associated to the latest occasions and that the timing was merely a coincidence.
“As I perceive it and because it was defined to me, these extra forces are thought-about short-term rotational forces that deploy to satisfy shifting mission necessities, whereas the core 900 deployers are on longer-term deployments,” Ryder mentioned.
The US army has been lively in Syria since as early as 2014, ostensibly to combat Islamic State (IS, previously often known as ISIS) terrorists, and has flown numerous airstrikes towards choose militant teams and, at occasions, Syrian authorities forces.
Underneath President Barack Obama, Washington doled out a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in weapons to an array of jihadist insurgent factions in search of to overthrow Assad, though the trouble later fizzled following Russian and Iranian army involvement on the request of Damascus.
In 2019, President Donald Trump ordered all US troops to withdraw, however Pentagon officers pushed again, and he backtracked later that yr, saying: “We’re holding the oil… We left troops behind just for the oil.”
Since then, the US has saved some 900 troops scattered throughout a number of bases. Syrian officers have repeatedly accused the Pentagon of “stealing” the nation’s oil reserves from provinces within the northeast, the place American forces have been embedded with Kurdish militia teams.
Earlier this month, Syrian opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists launched a shock offensive throughout the nation, capturing Damascus and forcing Assad to resign as president and search asylum in Russia.
On Friday, Washington despatched a delegation to Damascus for the primary time since 2012, and introduced it is going to not supply a $10 million bounty for the HTS chief.
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