Pentagon Signs Order for US Pullout from Syria
The US military has announced that the order to pull the American forces out of Syria has been signed.
President Donald Trump unexpectedly announced on Wednesday that the US would be pulling all its 2,000 forces out of Syria. He also claimed victory over the Daesh Takfiri terror outfit in Syria.
“The execute order for Syria has been signed,” a US military spokesperson told AFP when asked about the pullout order, without elaborating.
Trump tweeted that he and Turkey’s Erdogan had “discussed (Daesh) and their mutual involvement in Syria and the slow and coordinated pullout of US troops from the area.
Washington has long been supporting the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces as its most effective partner in Syria.
On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron rebuked Trump over his decision to withdraw troops from Syria, saying “an ally must be reliable.”
France, a leading member of the US-led coalition, has said it would keep troops in Syria. France’s pronouncement of support came even as the SDF said it would stop its alleged fight against Daesh terrorists.
Trump’s decision has sparked turmoil within his administration, prompting the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Brett McGurk, the special envoy to the so-called anti-Daesh coalition.
Trump later named Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan as the acting Pentagon chief, saying he will replace Mattis starting January 1, earlier than previously scheduled.
Terrorists sent to Africa, Iran’s neighbors: TV
Meantime, sources also told al-Manar TV that the US had provided terrorists operating in the region, most of them Daesh members, with additional weapons, and transferred hundreds of them to areas in North Africa, Libya and Egypt’s Sinai as part of a process to redistribute them after their heavy losses against Syrian army troops.
The report said that Washington had also sent a number of terrorists to Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and areas near the Iranian and Russian borders.
Washington and Arab allies, the newspaper said, claim that such moves would diminish the perceived threat posed by the presence of Iranian military advisers and Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement in Syria.
Iran has been offering military advisory support to Syria at the request of the Damascus government, enabling its army to speed up its gains on various fronts against terror outfits.
Hezbollah forces have also been assisting the Syrian government on the ground to clear areas bordering Lebanon from terrorist groups.
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