US-LED COALİTİON FİGHTİNG ISIL;OBAMA
Obama Announces 250 New Military
Personnel For Syria
Officials Say Move To Boost US Presence Five-Fold
İs Aimed At Backing Groups Going Up Against ISIL.
25 Apr 2016 18:40 GMT | War & Conflict, Syria's Civil War, Middle East
US
President Barack Obama has said he plans to send 250 more troops to Syria, a
sharp increase in the number of Americans working with local Syrian forces.
"I've decided to increase US support for local
forces fighting ISIL in Syria ... I've approved the deployment
of up to 250 US personnel in Syria, including special forces,"
Obama said, announcing the decision after a meeting in Hanover with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel
The
deployment, which will increase US forces in Syria to about 300, aims to
accelerate the process of driving back the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL, also known as ISIS), White House adviser Ben Rhodes said.
Inside Story - Will Syria's war be won
or lost in Aleppo.?
In
Iraq, the US plans to send 200 more soldiers and Apache helicopter gunships in
preparation for an offensive to retake Mosul.
"I
think the administration has come to the conclusion that the Iraq army is not
capable of taking Mosul... The strategy is going to be to go after Raqqa with
the Syrian Kurds," Peter Galbraith, an advisor to the Syrian Kurds and
former US diplomat, told Al Jazeera from Paris.
Obama
also said that Europe needed to take on its share of the burden to ensure
collective security, adding that the Western allies could do more in the fight
against ISIL.
ISIL controls the cities of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in
Iraq and is proving a potent threat abroad, claiming credit for major
attacks in Paris in November and Brussels in March.
While
Obama has resisted deploying US troops in Syria, he initially sent 50 US
special operations personnel there last year.
The
US officials described the forces as being on a "counterterrorism"
mission rather than involved in an effort to tip the scales in the war, which
UN envoy Staffan De Mistura estimates has killed 400,000 people.
OPINION: Are the US
and Russia helping or deceiving the Syrians.?
Obama pledged to wind down wars in the Middle East when he was
first elected in 2008. However, in the latter part of
his presidency, he has made decisions to keep or add to the numbers of troops
deployed to conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
The
president is ending a six-day international trip that began in Riyadh, where he
held talks with Gulf Arab monarchs concerned that Washington's commitment
to the Middle East had waned.
After
that meeting, Obama sidestepped a question about whether he would send special
forces to Syria if talks failed to end the war, saying: "None of the options are good."
Obama also said the US-led coalition fighting ISIL had squeezed
the group's territory in Iraq and Syria, reducing its numbers and cutting off
its finances.
Source: AlJazeera
Ökkeş Bölükbaşı, İstanbul – Nisan.2016 – okkesb61@gmail.com,
http://www.medyagunebakis.com/ –– okkesb@turkfreezone.com,
https://twitter.com/okkesb ––––––– E.mail: okkesb@telmar.net,
https://www.facebook.com/okkes.bolukbasi,-
okkesb@gmail.com,
Ökkeş Bölükbaşı, İstanbul – Nisan.2016 – okkesb61@gmail.com,
|