US mulls military U-turn in Syria

The White House is considering options for leaving about 500 US troops in northeast Syria.

Turkey-backed Syrian rebel fighters assist a wounded comrade near the border town of Tal Abyad on Thursday. Picture: Reuters

The White House is considering options for leaving about 500 US troops in northeast Syria and for sending dozens of tanks and other equipment, the latest in an array of scenarios following President ­Donald Trump’s decision to ­remove all troops.

The options, presented by milit­ary officials on Friday, would represent a reversal from the US withdrawal Mr Trump wanted.

It also would modify US object­ives — from countering Islamic State extremists to also safeguarding oilfields in eastern Syria with ­additional troops and new milit­ary capability. Washington sees the fields as potential leverage in future negotiations over Syria.

“We will NEVER let a recon­stituted ISIS have those fields!” Mr Trump tweeted on Friday.

The options for tanks and troops, which haven’t been decided­, were being discussed in Washington as Defence Secretary Mark Esper, in Brussels, urged US allies at a NATO meeting to respon­d to Turkey’s incursion into Syria ­earlier this month.

Mr Esper’s request came amid fissures in the security bloc’s ­approach to the crisis and over the Trump administration’s policy shifts. Mr Trump earlier this month ordered all US troops out of northern Syria, a move that was criticised by Kurdish fighters allied with the US as an abandonment.

Critics say Turkey launched the mission because it believed Mr Trump gave the move the green light during an October 6 call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mr Trump said he didn’t give a go-ahead for the assault. The US leader then imposed sanctions on Turkey and threatened to destroy the NATO ally’s economy before lifting the sanctions when Turkey announced a ceasefire.

Russian military forces on patrol near the northeast Syrian town of Amuda. Picture: AFP

Mr Esper said he supported a proposal this week by German ­Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to create an international security zone in northern Syria with Russia and Turkey, which have already made their own deal to secure the region.

Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer said at the NATO meeting the Russia-Turkey deal was insufficient to bring long-term peace.

“There are different views,” NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday night. “This was an open and frank discussion among friends and ­allies. There is strong support for a political solution.”

Mr Trump, after ordering all US forces out of northeast Syria in early October, said later that he would agree to leave about 200 troops to safeguard oilfields.

The move came after Repub­lican senator Lindsey Graham outlined the potential importance of the oil.

Senator Graham suggested that US troops would end up ­securing the oilfields. He was among eight to 10 senators briefed by the White House on Friday.

“There are some plans coming together from the Joint Chiefs that I think may work, that may give us what we need to prevent ISIS from coming back, Iran taking­ the oil, ISIS from taking the oil,” he said. “I am somewhat ­encouraged that a plan is coming about that will meet our core ­objectives in Syria.”

The top US envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, said in testimony on Thursday before the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee that the US also might hang on to a Syrian airfield. The option of sending tanks was ­earlier reported by Newsweek.

While the Trump administration’s plans for US troops in Syria shifts, so do the plans for what to do with the approximately 1000 US troops, most of them special forces, following Mr Trump’s order to withdraw.

Mr Esper said over the weekend that most of the troops would go to neighbouring Iraq, triggering a pointed reaction from Baghdad, where officials said those troops would only be able to ­remain for four weeks. Meeting at NATO headquarters, Mr Esper criticised Ankara for its assault.

“Turkey’s unwarranted incursion into northern Syria jeopard­ises the gains made there in recent years,” he said. “Turkey put us all in a terrible situation.”

For NATO, disagreement over how to address Turkey’s actions strikes another blow to the unity of an alliance already rocked by Mr Trump’s frequent broadsides over what he says is insufficient military spending by allies.

French President Emmanuel Macron — whose country has special forces in northern Syria — has responded with anger over the abrupt US move to withdraw troops from Syria, which he said he learned about on Twitter.

The Wall Street Journal