Trump administration scrambles to salvage US troop presence in Syria
President Trump says he would leave some US troops in Syria to keep the Assad regime and Iranian forces away from oil fields; the Syrian Democratic Forces commander speaks with both Trump and the Russian army chief of staff.
President Donald Trump said today that he would leave an undisclosed number of American troops in Syria to keep the Bashar al-Assad regime and Iranian forces away from the war-torn country’s oil fields, as the US tried to court the Syrian Democratic Forces to remain in the Islamic State fight.
The move came as the US president celebrated the expiration of a five-day cease-fire, which the Trump administration hopes to make permanent.
But top US officials remained unclear what a residual American military presence, first reported by Al-Monitor, would look like.
In a full day of testimony on Capitol Hill today, the special representative for Syria engagement, James Jeffrey, said the Trump administration is "looking at what the options are for military and other support" even though the president has ordered American troops to withdraw from northern Syria. “We do contemplate, I believe, maintaining one of our two airfields that are there.”
