Assad threatens to expel US troops from Syria by force

AMERICA should learn the lesson of Iraq, Bashar al-assad said yesterday, as he threatened to expel US troops from Syria and retake areas from its Kurdish allies.

In an interview with RT, the Russian state’s international broadcaster, the Syrian president raised the prospect of conflict with US forces if they do not leave, vowing to recover territory where American troops have deployed, either through negotiations with Washington’s Syrian allies or by force.

Mr Assad, who is backed by Russia and Iran, appears militarily unassailable in the war.

After recovering many of the rebels’ former strongholds, he now controls the biggest part of Syria, but a number of tracts remain outside his control. They include large parts of the north and east where US special forces deployed during the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), supporting the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

He said: “The Americans should leave; somehow they’re going to leave. They came to Iraq with no legal basis, and look what happened to them.”