The US on Friday escalated its fight against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria, pledging the first open deployment of military boots on the ground, even as US, Russian and other diplomats pressed a new peace effort that the US hopes will hasten the departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Up to 50 special operations troops are to be sent to assist Kurdish and Arab forces in northern Syria, US officials said.
The move marks a significant departure for US President Barack Obama, who for years has resisted putting ground forces in Syria even as he has gradually intensified the US military response to what counterterrorism officials worry is a growing IS threat in Syria and Iraq.
Photo: Reuters
The troop announcement came as diplomats in Vienna representing 17 countries and the EU agreed to launch a broad new peace attempt to gradually end Syria’s long civil war — a declaration that avoided any determination on when al-Assad might leave. It is not clear how many rebel groups would agree to a plan that doesn’t result in al-Assad’s immediate departure.
Any ceasefire agreement that may come as a result of the peace effort would not include the IS, which controls large parts of northern Syria and has its capital there.
However, the participation by Russia and Iran in the attempt could mark a new and promising phase in the diplomacy since those countries have staunchly backed al-Assad.
The White House has long said that al-Assad’s ouster is essential to its ultimate goal of defeating the IS because the Syrian president’s brutal tactics against Sunni rebels have drawn Sunni radicals from all over the world into the militant group’s ranks.
The Syrian civil war has killed more than 250,000 people and uprooted more than 11 million, sparking a refugee crisis throughout most of Europe.
Despite killing as many as 12,000 militants, the US bombing campaign has not significantly weakened the IS’ capacity to hold territory, and the group’s ranks have been replenished by foreign fighters and others.
Military experts say ground troops are essential for the fight.
A US program to train Syrians was abandoned as a failure, and the new deployment essentially would replace that program.
Speaking to reporters flying with him on an overseas trip, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said this would probably not be the last significant adjustment to the anti-IS military campaign in Syria and Iraq.
“We are going to continue to innovate, to build up what works,” he said.
In Washington, officials said the new US forces will work from headquarters locations and would not move to the front lines or be used to call in airstrikes. However, the US has conducted special operations raids into Syria before now and will continue to do more unilateral raids.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the new troops will not be on a “combat mission.”
“There’s no denying the serious risk they will be facing,” Earnest said, but their mission will “not be to lead the charge to take the hill.”
Russia and Syria are conducting airstrikes in the country, but Earnest said it was unlikely the US troops would be at risk because Russia has not bombed in the area where they will be.
On Capitol Hill, some lawmakers greeted the troop announcement with dismay.
It “marks a major shift in US policy — a shift that is occurring without congressional debate [and] is unlikely to succeed in achieving our objective of defeating IS,” said US Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat.
On the other hand, US Senator John McCain, the Republican chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, said the decision was “another insufficient step in the Obama administration’s policy of gradual escalation.”
In Vienna on Friday, the US, Russia and more than a dozen other nations directed the UN to start a new diplomatic process between Syria’s government and opposition groups with the goal of reaching a nationwide cease-fire and political transition — but without an explicit demand for al-Assad to quickly leave power.
US officials say the talks marked a significant new phase, one they hope is an endgame for al-Assad’s reign.
At a joint news conference with Russia’s top diplomat and the UN envoy to Syria, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the countries — including fierce regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia — each pledged to support an independent and secular Syria, to maintain the country’s institutions, to protect the rights of all Syrians and to strive to defeat the IS.
Kerry said the UN-led process should lead to a new constitution for Syria and internationally supervised elections, as well as an end to violence between al-Assad’s military and Sunni rebel groups so the world community can focus on the fight against IS.
However, no agreement was reached on al-Assad.
“I did not say that al-Assad has to go or that al-Assad has to say,” Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said through an interpreter.
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