Pentagon tries to reassure Kurdish allies amid Syria pullout confusion
With the Islamic State down to its last few miles in Syria, the Pentagon hopes to get the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces to assist with the American withdrawal.
The Donald Trump administration’s decision to keep a residual force in Syria has temporarily reassured America’s Kurdish allies, who have publicly floated the possibility of looking to Bashar al-Assad for protection. But officials fear the US-backed force fighting the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS) could still fracture amid uncertainty over US intentions.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Thursday that the United States would keep a peacekeeping force of 200 troops in Syria “for a period of time,” further muddling the president’s timeline for withdrawal. Administration officials upped that number to 400 today, and the Pentagon said the US units would be split evenly between al-Tanf, a training facility on the border with Iraq, and northeastern Syria to protect the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from Turkish attack.
