US adds troops ahead of anti-ISIS push in Raqqa
Syrian rebel alliance says it won’t let Turkey play role in fight
BEIRUT (Reuters) – A US Marines artillery unit has deployed to Syria in recent days to help local forces speed up efforts to defeat Islamic State in the city of Raqqa as the campaign to isolate the city was said on Thursday to be going “very, very well,” according to the US-led coalition.
Coalition spokesman US Air Force Col. John Dorrian said the additional US forces would be working with local partners in Syria – the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian Arab Coalition – and would not have a frontline role.
The additional deployment comprises a total of 400 US forces – both Marines and Army Rangers. It adds to around 500 US military personnel already in Syria, Dorrian said.
The SDF, which includes the Kurdish YPG militia, is the main US partner in the war against Islamic State insurgents in Syria. Since November it has been working with the US-led coalition to encircle Raqqa, ISIS’s main urban bastion in Syria.
This week, the SDF cut the road between Raqqa and the jihadists’ stronghold of Deir al-Zor province – the last main road out of the city.
Islamic State is also being fought in Syria by the Russian-backed Syrian military, and by Syrian rebel groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner with Turkish backing in northern Syria and Jordanian backing in southern Syria.
Dorrian said the effort to isolate Raqqa was “going very, very well” and could be completed in a few weeks. “Then the decision to move in can be made,” he said.
The additional forces had arrived in “the last few days,” he told Reuters by telephone.
The artillery will help “expedite the defeat of ISIS in Raqqa,” he said, using another acronym for Islamic State. The Marines were armed with 155-millimeter artillery guns. Asked if they had been used yet, Dorrian said he did not believe so.
“We have had what I would describe as a pretty relentless air campaign to destroy enemy capabilities and to kill enemy fighters in that area already. That is something that we are going to continue and intensify with this new capability,” he said. “We are talking about an additional 400 or so forces in total, and they will be there for a temporary period,” he said.
A Kurdish military source told Reuters the extra US forces were deployed as part of a joint plan between the SDF and US-led coalition to capture Raqqa, and further US reinforcements were expected to arrive in the coming few days.
Dorrian said the Army Rangers were on a different mission from the Marines in a previously announced deployment near the city of Manbij to “create some reassurance” for US-allied Turkey and US partners in Syria – a reference to the SDF.
Turkey views the YPG as a threat to its national security and says the Kurdish militia maintains a presence in Manbij. The YPG denies this. Fearing deepening Kurdish influence in northern Syria, Turkey has been pressing Washington for a role in the final assault on Raqqa.
Dorrian said a possible role for Turkey “remains a point of discussion at military leadership and diplomatic levels.”
“We have always said we are open to a role for Turkey in the liberation of Raqqa and will continue that discussion to whatever logical end there is,” he added.
Meanwhile Thursday, an American-backed alliance of Syrian militias told US officials that Turkey must have no role in the campaign to capture the city of Raqqa from Islamic State.
“The Turkish side is an occupation force and it cannot be allowed to occupy more Syrian land,” Talal Silo, spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, told Reuters. He said the SDF had delivered that message in a meeting with US Sen. John McCain and US military officials in northern Syria last month. Silo also indicated it would be a matter of weeks before the SDF reaches the outskirts of Raqqa, after severing the last main road to the city this week. “We expect that within a few weeks there will be a siege of the city,” he said.
In response, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said that no decision has been made yet on who will carry out the operation to capture Raqqa.
“Our plan is very clear, but the negotiation process is going on,” Ibrahim Kalin said, referring to a trilateral meeting between US, Russia and Turkey military chiefs this week.
“There is no final decision on by whom and how the offensive on Raqqa will be carried out. Kurdish militants should move out of Syria’s Manbij to the east of the Euphrates, as we were promised,” Kalin told reporters in Ankara.