Tag: syria

  • US troops doubled in Syria before Assad’s overthrow, Pentagon says

    US troops doubled in Syria before Assad’s overthrow, Pentagon says

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    The U.S. more than doubled its number of troops in Syria — from 900 to around 2,000 — before the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s government, the Pentagon said Thursday, publicly disclosing the surge for the first time.

    In a rare step, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder opened the regular Thursday briefing at the Pentagon with the admission.

    “I learned today that, in fact, there are approximately 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria,” he said.

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    Ryder had previously told reporters that there were 900 such forces in the country as part of America’s decade-old fight against the Islamic State group. These troops are deployed for nine to 12 months at a time, he said Thursday, as opposed to the 1,100 extra forces who are being surged for a shorter window of 30 to 90 days.

    Ryder could not share where the troops came from, what units are involved or their specific mission — other than it concerns the mission against ISIS and that most of the troops are from the Army.

    Pentagon spokespeople were scrambling Thursday to answer further questions from reporters, including where the troops are operating and how it’s possible so many extra forces are in the country without their knowledge.

    “I’m confident that the secretary is tracking U.S. forces deployed around the world,” Ryder said. “There oftentimes are going to be diplomatic or operational security considerations as it relates to the deployment of forces,” and whether they’re made public, he said.

    Ryder said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin did not order the surge of troops to be kept private. Ryder also did not directly respond to a question about whether any part of the Defense Department attempted to conceal the information, since the Pentagon has publicly said the number of troops in the country is 900 for years.

    He said Austin and Gen. Erik Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command, have not discussed the issue despite the two speaking often.

    Late last month, Syria’s ruling Assad regime fell after 50 years in power, when rebels stormed the capital of Damascus following a rapid offensive. The U.S. and Israel have since been pounding the country with airstrikes, hitting targets that were once off-limits due to the regime or Russian forces operating in the area.

    U.S. Central Command conducted two large strikes in the last two weeks, the crescendo to a rising campaign against ISIS that’s involved more raids in Syria and Iraq over the last several months.

    The extra forces were inside Syria before the regime fell, Ryder said.

    Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump has publicly called for the U.S. not to get further involved in the country. During his first presidency, Trump tried to withdraw American forces from the country, leading his first defense secretary to resign.

    Since Israel’s war in Gaza began last year, American troops in the Middle East — including Syria — have been under increasing fire. There have been at least 181 attacks on U.S. forces in the region since Oct. 17, 2023.

    Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.

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  • Russia, Turkiye, Iran want ‘immediate end’ to fighting in Syria: Lavrov

    Russia, Turkiye, Iran want ‘immediate end’ to fighting in Syria: Lavrov

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    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said he, along with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts, are calling for “an end to hostile activities” in Syria, where opposition fighters have made a rapid advance in a major challenge to President Bashar al-Assad.

    Speaking to Al Jazeera at the Doha Forum in the Qatari capital on Saturday, Lavrov said Russia, Iran and Turkiye expressed support for “dialogue between the government and legitimate opposition” in Syria.

    The three countries have been involved since 2017 in the so-called Astana Format talks seeking a political settlement in Syria, and their top diplomats – Lavrov, Iran’s Abbas Araghchi and Turkiye’s Hakan Fidan met in a trilateral format on the sidelines of the Doha Forum.

    “We called for [an] immediate end to hostile activities. We stated, all of us, that we want the [United Nations] Resolution 2254 to be fully implemented, and for this purpose, called for the dialogue between the government and legitimate opposition,” Lavrov said.

    Syria-led process

    Resolution 2254 (PDF) outlines a commitment to the “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity” of Syria and says the only solution to the years-long conflict will be through “an inclusive and Syrian-led political process”.

    Asked whether Moscow – a key backer of al-Assad and the Syrian army – believes the Syrian president can hang on to power, Lavrov said he was “not in the business of guessing”.

    “We agreed today with Iran and Turkiye to issue a strong call, which I described, and we will be doing some specific steps to make sure that this call is heeded,” he said.

    Lavrov’s comments came as fighters led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) armed group have made a lightning advance in Syria over days, taking control of key cities, including Aleppo and Hama.

    Late on Friday, the rebels said they had reached the edge of Homs, a strategic city linking the capital Damascus to coastal parts of the country where al-Assad enjoys support from the Alawite community.

    In a post on Telegram on Saturday afternoon, an opposition commander said the HTS-led group’s forces had begun “operations” inside Homs.

    Opposition fighters have also made gains in Deraa and Sweida, in southwestern Syria near the border with Jordan, and taken control of some towns in the Damascus countryside.

    ‘Much weaker’

    Reporting from Kilis, near Turkiye’s border with Syria, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said the Syrian government has lost control of a majority of the country’s territory.

    “We are seeing a Syrian government that is much weaker than in 2016, when it was backed strongly by Russia, by Iran, by [Lebanese group] Hezbollah on the ground,” he said.

    “Russians are extremely busy in Ukraine. They have withdrawn a majority of their military equipment and personnel from the Khmeimim airbase [in Syria] to Ukraine,” Serdar explained, while Iran and Hezbollah have also been embroiled in fighting against Israel.

    “All of these factors have created such a vacuum.”

    At Saturday’s Doha Forum, Lavrov said Russia was “absolutely convinced of the inadmissibility to use terrorists like HTS to achieve geopolitical purposes”.

    “We’re trying to do everything not to allow terrorists to prevail; even if they say they are no longer terrorists,” he said.

    Downplaying fears

    Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the Russian foreign minister “was trying to project an image of strength and being in control”.

    “He was trying to downplay fears that al-Assad’s regime in Syria is on the imminent brink of collapse, instead talking about how he’s doing all he can to promote the sovereignty of Syria and to try to stabilise the situation,” he told Al Jazeera.

    Ramani said the opposition forces’ rapid advance appears to have caught Moscow off-guard.

    “They have been watching and they have been spectators just like us to what’s unfolding in Syria, and they don’t really seem to have a very clear game plan to keep al-Assad in power.”



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  • Three US personnel being tested for brain injuries after Syria attack

    Three US personnel being tested for brain injuries after Syria attack

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    Three U.S. service members are undergoing tests for potential traumatic brain injury after a strike earlier this week on an American base in Syria.

    In a briefing Thursday, Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the attack occurred near Military Support Site Euphrates, which sits on the east side of the strategically important river in eastern Syria.

    U.S. Central Command struck the attacking forces Tuesday, which included three truck-mounted rocket launchers, a tank and mortars. Ryder didn’t say where the three injured U.S. personnel were when attacked or what specific group began the fire.

    The strike has become a subject of confusion as Syria’s military bleeds territory to rebels, who belong to a group that was once affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the U.S. still considers a terrorist affiliate. The Syrian government is reeling this week after losing control of Hama, one of the country’s largest cities and one that sits farther west.

    A mix of Iranian-backed rebel groups, Syrian military forces, Kurdish and tribal militias and the U.S. military straddle the Euphrates River. Especially troublesome for the U.S. and its partners are a set of enemy villages controlled that sit on the same side as American forces — an uncomfortable proximity that has led to conflict before.

    Ryder didn’t specify whether the initial attack came in response to the U.S. supporting a partnered operation in this area, instead arguing that the subsequent strikes were in “self-defense.”

    Videos of A-10 Warthogs flying over eastern Syria added to the uncertainty when they began circulating on social media earlier this week as well. Ryder said one of these planes engaged a separate target in self-defense and continued to say the U.S. is not assisting the Syrian rebels in their flash offensive.

    America has around 900 personnel in the country that help lead an international group of countries fighting ISIS. U.S. bases there and across the Middle East have come under increasing fire since Israel’s war began in Gaza last fall. Between Oct. 18, 2023, and Nov. 21, 2024, there were 206 such attacks on U.S. forces in the region, including 125 in Syria alone, according to the Pentagon.

    Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.

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  • Renewed fighting in Syria leaves thousands internally displaced

    Renewed fighting in Syria leaves thousands internally displaced

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    NewsFeed

    Thousands of people are displaced in Syria after intense fighting between opposition groups and government forces.

    Published On 2 Dec 2024


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  • At least 15 people killed in Israeli strikes on Syria’s Damascus

    At least 15 people killed in Israeli strikes on Syria’s Damascus

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    Israel has ramped up attacks on Iran-linked targets in Syria since it began its war on Gaza last year.

    At least 15 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on residential buildings in Damascus, Syrian state media reported.

    “The Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan [Heights], targeting residential buildings in the Mazzeh neighbourhood of Damascus and the Qudssaya area in the Damascus countryside, killing 15 people and injuring 16 others,” the ministry said on Thursday, adding that the death toll could rise.

    The Israeli military said it carried out air strikes targeting several buildings and command centres belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad armed group.

    The strikes are a “significant blow” to the Gaza-based group and its operatives, the Israeli army statement says on Telegram.

    An official with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Group told The Associated Press news agency the strike in Mazzeh targeted one of the group’s offices, and that several members of the group were killed.

    “[The Palestinian Islamic Jihad] is a Gaza-based group, a group that participated along with Hamas in the October 7 attacks in Israel last year,” Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford said, reporting from Beirut.

    “In the last few weeks or so, there has been an escalation in Israel targeting infrastructure and according to Israel, Hezbollah-related targets in Syria. Certainly, this is the first time in a long while, that Palestinian Islamic Jihad is targeted,” he added.

    Syria
    A woman reacts as she checks the damage following a reported Israeli strike in the Mazzeh district of Damascus outskirts [Louai Beshara/AFP]

    Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since last year’s October 7 attack led by the Palestinian group Hamas. Israel also launched its continuing assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 43,736 people and wounded 103,370 others, according to Palestinian authorities.

    Commanders in Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard based in Syria have been known to reside in Mazzeh, according to residents who fled after recent strikes that killed some key figures from the groups.

    Mazzeh’s high-rise blocks have been used by the authorities in the past to house leaders of Palestinian factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

    “It is also interesting to point out that in recent weeks Israel has been trying to cut weapons lines for Hezbollah. This strike [Thursday’s strike] doesn’t seem to be necessarily related to that … but this attack again highlights the length and reach of Israel,” Stratford added.

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