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Pentagon admits massive surge of US troops in Syria

 https://www.rt.com/news/609720-pentagon-reveals-syria-troops/ 21 Dec 24

Washington insists it was a coincidence that reinforcements were sent before the collapse of President Bashar Assad’s government

The US has revealed that it has more than doubled its military presence in Syria, with a Pentagon spokesman saying that he “just recently learned” there were in fact roughly 2,000 American forces deployed in the country, rather than 900 troops as previously reported.

For years, the Pentagon had maintained that “about 900” US troops were stationed in the country, and officials continued to repeat this figure even after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad on December 8.

However, during a press conference on Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that “we recently learned that those numbers [are] higher.”

The US military has been active in Syria since as early as 2014, ostensibly to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS) terrorists, and has flown countless airstrikes against select militant groups and, at times, Syrian government forces.

Under President Barack Obama, Washington doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to an array of jihadist rebel factions seeking to overthrow Assad, although the effort later fizzled following Russian and Iranian military involvement at the request of Damascus.

In 2019, President Donald Trump ordered all US troops to withdraw, but Pentagon officials pushed back, and he backtracked later that year, saying: “We’re keeping the oil… We left troops behind only for the oil.”

Since then, the US has kept some 900 troops scattered across several bases. Syrian officials have repeatedly accused the Pentagon of “stealing” the country’s oil reserves from provinces in the northeast, where American forces have been embedded with Kurdish militia groups.

Earlier this month, Syrian opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists launched a surprise offensive across the country, capturing Damascus and forcing Assad to resign as president and seek asylum in Russia.

On Friday, Washington sent a delegation to Damascus for the first time since 2012, and announced it will no longer offer a $10 million bounty for the HTS leader.

December 23, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Syria, USA, weapons and war