Defense Secretary Mark Esper says that under the current plan all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq, and the military will continue to conduct operations against the Islamic State group to prevent a resurgence in that country.
FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2019 file photo, U.S. soldiers survey the the safe zone between Syria and the Turkish border near Tal Abyad, Syria, on a joint patrol with the Tax Abyad Military Council, affiliated with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. Defense Secretary Mark Esper says that under the current plan all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq, and that the military will continue to conduct operations against the Islamic State group to prevent a resurgence in that country.
His comments were the first to specifically lay out where American troops will go as they leave Syria and what the counter-IS fight could look like. Esper said he has spoken to his Iraqi counterpart about the plan to shift the more than 700 troops leaving Syria into western Iraq. Trump ordered the bulk of the approximately 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria to withdraw after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made it clear in a phone call that his forces were about to invade Syria to push back Kurdish forces that Turkey considers terrorists.
Esper said he will talk with other allies at a NATO meeting in the coming week to discuss the way ahead for the counter-IS mission. While he acknowledged reports of intermittent fighting despite the cease-fire agreement, he said that overall it “generally seems to be holding. We see a stability of the lines, if you will, on the ground.”
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