It is a shift in US strategy against terrorist movement
Daech. Although the White House ensures that its “strategy in Syria has not changed,” the US has given the green light to sending ground troops in the north of Syria. Until now, Washington had refused any military presence on Syrian soil in order not to be drawn into the conflict such as in Iraq or in Afghanistan.
For the first time in four and a half years of conflict which left more than 300,000 dead, Barack Obama has “authorized the deployment of a small staff, fewer than 50, US Special Forces operations in northern Syria, “said Friday a part of the US administration. This small contingent of elite soldiers will be responsible for contributing to the war effort against the terrorist group Islamic State, said the US official. These special forces “will help coordinate local troops on the ground and coalition efforts to counter the IE,” he said. “These forces do not have a combat mission,” stressed the spokesman of the White House, Josh Earnest, during his press briefing Friday.
“These forces have no combat mission”
Officially, these forces will therefore be confined to an advisory role and support to armed rebel groups said Syrian moderated, and will therefore not directly involved in the fighting. However, they will be “equipped to defend themselves.” Because “it is undeniable that these military take real risks,” said the spokesman of Barack Obama.
These numbers will they grow in the future? The White House does not exclude this possibility: “I do not want to predict the future,” said the spokesman. How long will they stay there? Here again, Josh Earnest was evasive: “I would not describe that mission as permanent.”
Furthermore, as part of the war effort, an official in Washington confirmed that the US military would deploy ground attack aircraft A-10 and F-15 fighters at an air base in Turkey, neighboring Syria and member of the coalition.
These military decisions came as US Secretary of State, John Kerry, participated Friday in Vienna, the Austrian capital in multilateral discussions on Syria to war with other key diplomatic players in the dossier. But no final decision on the future of Bashar al-Assad regime has been concluded. A new meeting is scheduled in two weeks.
Since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in March 2011, Obama has long refused to get involved militarily in Syria. In September 2013, US President repeated that he “would not put American troops on the ground in Syria”, causing anger at the time of its allies, including France and Sunni Gulf Countries, renouncing in time to militarily strike the regime of Bashar al Assad. Then in the summer of 2014, Washington has assembled a coalition of 65 countries to bomb the positions of IE and other jihadist groups in Syria and neighboring Iraq. For over a year, these strikes are almost daily.
