The fall of the Assad regime in Syria won’t affect U.S. help, a minimum of for now, for considered one of Washington’s most steadfast allies within the combat in opposition to the Islamic State terror group, in accordance with senior American officers.
Speaking simply hours after Russian officers confirmed former Syrian chief Bashar al-Assad had fled Damascus and brought refuge in Moscow, and a day after insurgent forces entered the Syrian capital, U.S. officers insisted there aren’t any plans to change the U.S. army footprint in Syria, which incorporates some 900 troops, most of them working within the nation’s northeast with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF.
Maintaining U.S. positions throughout jap Syria “is one thing we’ll proceed to do,” a senior U.S. administration official mentioned Sunday, briefing reporters on the situation of anonymity so as to focus on delicate info.
“We assume that presence is critically essential for the soundness of these areas and for denying the efforts of ISIS to resurge, and likewise for the integrity of the SDF and the teams that we work with within the East to keep up stability on the market,” the official mentioned, utilizing an acronym for the Islamic State group, also referred to as IS or Daesh.
The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fashioned in 2015, mustering a drive of 30,000 to 40,000 fighters that performed a key position in eroding IS’s maintain on giant swaths of territory, together with the phobia group’s self-proclaimed Syrian capital of Raqqa.
Four years after its creation, in March 2019, the SDF introduced the autumn of the city of Baghuz, IS’s final stronghold in Syria.
But the defeat of the self-declared IS caliphate in Syria got here at a price. SDF officers estimated some 11,000 fighters had been killed within the yearslong marketing campaign. And combating with remnants of the phobia group has persevered.
Intelligence shared each by the U.S. and by United Nation member states earlier this yr indicated an uptick in IS exercise, particularly by small cells in Syria’s central desert, describing it as a rising logistic hub for the phobia group.
Various estimates warn the variety of IS fighters throughout Syria and Iraq has grown to between 2,500 and 5,000.
This previous July, U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq, warned IS was on tempo to “greater than double the whole variety of assaults they claimed in 2023.”
And IS has made repeated makes an attempt to free some 9,000 of its fighters being held in about 20 SDF-run prisons throughout northeastern Syria, described by one senior U.S, official as “the most important assortment of terrorist fighters on this planet.”
Additionally, the SDF has been charged with overseeing safety at displaced individuals camps, like al-Hol and al-Roj, which home about 30,000 folks, most of them kids beneath the age of 12, and plenty of from households loyal to IS.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday mentioned Washington has no intention of letting Syria, or the SDF, face these challenges alone.
“Our mission in opposition to ISIS might be maintained, together with the safety of detention amenities the place ISIS fighters are being held as prisoners,” the president mentioned.
“We’re clear eyed about the truth that ISIS will attempt to reap the benefits of any vacuum to reestablish its capabilities, to create a protected haven,” Biden added. “We won’t let that occur.”
To underscore the U.S. dedication, Biden mentioned U.S. forces Sunday carried out dozens of airstrikes in opposition to IS camps and operatives.
U.S. Central Command mentioned the operation struck greater than 75 targets utilizing a mix of long-range bombers, fighter jets and shut air help.
“We focused a big gathering of ISIS fighters and leaders,” the senior administration official mentioned, including U.S. conflict planes dropped about 140 munitions in the course of the strikes, which had been licensed earlier Sunday.
“It’s a big strike, I believe, simply given the gathering of ISIS people in that space and the scale of the world,” the official added.
But U.S. considerations about instability prolong past the risk from IS itself.
There are fears that ongoing tensions between the SDF and Turkey might additionally carry extra instability and hazard.
Already, there have been studies of clashes between Turkish-backed forces and the SDF in northern Syria.
Turkey has additionally lengthy voiced objections to the united statesalliance with the Kurdish-led SDF, arguing lots of the fighters are additionally People’s Protection Units, or YPG, a Syrian-based offshoot of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), labeled by each Ankara and Washington as a terrorist group.
And although the U.S. views the SDF and YPG as completely different entities, in Turkey’s view, they’re one and the identical.
U.S. officers mentioned Sunday that there have already been high-level talks between officers on the Pentagon and State departments with their Turkish counterparts, describing the calls as “constructive.”
“Additional conflicts, extra fronts opening up, not in anyone’s curiosity,” the official mentioned.
Some analysts, nevertheless, fear the Turkish-Kurdish tensions won’t be so simply resolved, pointing partly to Biden’s failure to say Turkey Sunday whereas discussing U.S. outreach to Syria’s different neighbors.
“[It] signifies that behind the scenes there’s persevering with to be ongoing machinations between American diplomats and Turkish officers about their goals for occupying parts of north and east Syria and thereby jeopardizing the Syrian Democratic Forces and civilians who reside beneath the [Kurdish-led] Autonomous Administration,” mentioned Myles Caggins, a nonresident fellow on the New Lines Institute and former spokesperson for the U.S.-led, anti-IS coalition in Syria and Iraq.
“President Biden made it very clear that U.S. forces will stay in north and east Syria within the foreseeable future to proceed the anti-ISIS mission,” Caggins instructed VOA. “The United States authorities has a possibility to showcase and spotlight its sturdy help of the Syrian Democratic Forces and folks of Northeast Syria.”
