Trump denies ending US support for Syrian rebels is bid to placate Russia

US president Donald Trump yesterday said he had ended operations to support rebels fighting against Syrian president Bashar Al Assad, because they were too expensive and dangerous.

Days ago Gen Tony Thomas, head of US special operations, confirmed the four-year operation was finished but denied that the decision was to placate Russia.

“The Amazon Washington

Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad,” Mr Trump tweeted yesterday.

The tweet was a response to an article in the newspaper under the headline “Co-operation with Russia becomes central to Trump strategy in Syria”.

It quoted sources saying that “the US and its proxies would concede Assad’s control of most of central and southern Syria” in return for Moscow and its allies steering clear of US coalition against ISIL.

The US and Russia agreed on safe zones in southern Syria during their first meeting at the G20 in Hamburg this month.

Former president Barack Obama approved the rebel aid programme in 2013 as insurgent groups sought external support in an uprising against the Assad regime.

Thousands of Syrian anti-government fighters were trained and armed under the programme.

But the US commitment remained ambiguous amid some doubts that the rebel fighters could actually depose Mr Al Assad and as attention turned to the rising power of ISIL in Syria and Iraq.

Support for the programme further weakened last year after the rebels lost the areas they held in the Syrian city of Aleppo under a brutal Russian-backed government assault.

US officials last week said that some of the anti-Assad forces could be absorbed into US-supported groups fighting ISIL.

Thousands of Syrian rebels had been trained and armed by US programme approved by Obama government