US backtracks on withdrawal
The United States will send armoured vehicles and combat troops into eastern Syria to keep oil fields from potentially falling into the hands of Islamic State militants, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper has announced.
It is the latest sign that extracting the US military from Syria is more uncertain and complicated than President Donald Trump is making it out to be.
Adding armoured reinforcements in the oilproducing area of Syria could mean sending several hundred US troops – even as a similar number are being withdrawn from a separate mission closer to the border with Turkey, where Russian forces have been filling the vacuum.
The reinforcements would introduce a new dimension to the US military presence, which largely has been comprised of special operations forces not equipped with tanks or other armoured vehicles.
Trump has ordered the withdrawal of nearly all 1000 US troops who had been partnering with a Syrian Kurdish-led militia against Isis. That withdrawal is proceeding even as Esper announced the plan to send reinforcements to the oilproducing area.
Trump said the US-brokered agreement with Turkey to halt its offensive against USsupporting Syrian Kurdish fighters was a win for his administration. The offensive began after Trump announced that US troops would not stand in the way, though he also said the US would punish Turkey’s economy if the country acted inhumanely.
He also said anew yesterday that ‘‘we’re getting our troops out’’ of Syria, without mentioning Esper’s announcement.
Russian and Turkish leaders have now divided up security roles in northeast Syria following Trump’s abrupt troop withdrawal from the TurkeySyrian border region. The American move triggered widespread criticism that the administration had abandoned the Syrian Kurdish fighters who fought alongside US forces against Isis for several years.
Esper’s announcement came even as Trump again indicated in tweets that the US military mission in Syria is complete.
‘‘Oil is secured,’’ Trump tweeted yesterday. ‘‘When these pundit fools who have called the Middle East wrong for 20 years ask what we are getting out of the deal, I simply say, THE OIL, AND WE ARE BRINGING OUR SOLDIERS BACK HOME, ISIS SECURED!’’
Asked about America’s shifting Syria strategy, Esper said the US mission has always been to prevent the resurgence of
Isis. ‘‘That mission remains unchanged.’’
Before 2017, Syrian oil was a major source of Isis’s revenue. Starting in late 2015 and continuing for many months, the US conducted air strikes against a range of oil resources in Deir el-Zour province that had been taken over by Isis.
Esper said Isis must not be allowed to again threaten the oil fields. ‘‘If Isis has access to the resources, and therefore the means to procure arms or to buy fighters or whatever else they do, then it means it makes it more difficult to defeat Isis.’’
According to officials, top military leaders have pushed for the US to leave forces in Syria to guard against an Isis resurgence. While the group’s physical zone of control was largely destroyed by US and Syrian Kurdish forces, insurgents remain in small pockets throughout the country and in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Russia has sent hundreds of additional troops to Syria to help patrol the country’s Turkey-Syria border after a deal between Moscow and Ankara.
The Russian Defence Ministry said yesterday about 300 military police had arrived to patrol the northeastern areas along the border with Turkey and oversee the pullout of Syrian Kurdish fighters. Military cargo planes had also flown in 20 armoured vehicles.
Turkey has been allowed to keep control over a significant chunk of northeastern Syria that it invaded on October 9, along with a larger piece of the border in the northwest, captured in previous incursions.
Under the Moscow-Ankara deal, Turkey is to keep sole control of a large section in the centre of the border area, aimed at driving the US-allied Kurdish forces out of a ‘‘safe zone’’ along the border. Syrian government and Russian military police are to control the rest of the 440-kilometre border and ensure that Syrian Kurdish fighters pull back to 30km from the frontier.
A large wedge of eastern Syria remains in the hands of the Kurdish-led fighters. That includes the bulk of Syria’s oil fields, which deprives Damascus of control over a crucial resource and gives the Syrian Kurds a major bargaining chip.