President-elect Donald Trump stated Saturday that the U.S. navy ought to keep out of the escalating battle in Syria as a shock opposition offensive closes in on the capital, declaring in a social media submit, “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT.”
With world leaders watching the fast insurgent advance in opposition to Syria’s Russian- and Iranian-backed president, Bashar Assad, President Joe Biden’s nationwide safety adviser individually careworn that the Biden administration had no intention of intervening.
“The US will not be going to … militarily dive into the center of a Syrian civil conflict,” Jake Sullivan instructed an viewers in California.
He stated the U.S. would hold appearing as essential to hold the Islamic State — a violently anti-Western extremist group not recognized to be concerned within the offensive however with sleeper cells in Syria’s deserts — from exploiting openings introduced by the combating.
Insurgents’ beautiful march throughout Syria sped quicker Saturday, reaching the gates of Damascus and authorities forces abandoning the central metropolis of Homs. The federal government was pressured to disclaim rumors that Assad had fled the nation.
Trump’s feedback on the dramatic insurgent push have been his first since Syrian rebels launched their advance late final month. They got here whereas he was in Paris for the reopening of the Notre Dame cathedral.
In his submit, Trump stated Assad didn’t deserve U.S. assist to remain in energy.
Assad’s authorities has been propped up by the Russian and Iranian navy, together with Hezbollah and different Iranian-allied militias, in a now 13-year-old conflict in opposition to opposition teams looking for his overthrow. The conflict, which started as a principally peaceable rebellion in 2011 in opposition to the Assad household’s rule, has killed a half-million individuals, fractured Syria and drawn in a greater than a half-dozen international militaries and militias.
The insurgents are led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist group and says has hyperlinks to al-Qaida, though the group has since damaged ties with al-Qaida.
The insurgents have met little resistance so removed from the Syrian military, the Russian and Iranian militaries or allied militias within the nation.
The Biden administration says Syrian opposition forces’ seize of government-held cities demonstrates simply how diminished these nations are by wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon.
“Assad’s backers — Iran, Russia and Hezbollah — have all been weakened and distracted,” Sullivan stated Saturday at an annual gathering of nationwide safety officers, protection firms and lawmakers on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
“None of them are ready to offer the type of assist to Assad that they supplied previously,” he later added.
The U.S. has about 900 troops in Syria, together with U.S. forces working with Kurdish allies within the opposition-held northeast to forestall any resurgence of the Islamic State group.
Gen. Bryan Fenton, head of U.S. Particular Operations Command, stated he wouldn’t need to speculate on how the upheaval in Syria would have an effect on the U.S. navy’s footprint within the nation. “It’s nonetheless too early to inform,” he stated.
What wouldn’t change is the give attention to disrupting IS operations in Syria and defending U.S. troops, Fenton stated throughout a panel on the Reagan occasion.
Syrian opposition activists and regional officers have been watching intently for any indication from the incoming Trump administration, particularly on how the U.S. would reply to the insurgent advances in opposition to Assad.
Robert Wilkie, Trump’s protection transition chief and a former secretary of the Division of Veterans Affairs, stated throughout the identical panel that the collapse of the “murderous Assad regime” could be a significant blow to Iran’s energy.
The United Nations’ particular envoy for Syria referred to as Saturday for pressing talks in Geneva to make sure an “orderly political transition” in Syria.
In his submit, Trump stated Russia “is so tied up in Ukraine” that it “appears incapable of stopping this literal march by Syria, a rustic they’ve protected for years.” He stated rebels might presumably pressure Assad from energy.
The president-elect condemned the general U.S. dealing with of the conflict however stated the routing of Assad and Russian forces could be for the very best.
“Syria is a large number, however will not be our buddy, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” he wrote in Saturday’s submit.
An influential Syrian opposition activist in Washington, Mouaz Moustafa, interrupted a briefing to reporters to learn Trump’s submit and appeared to choke up. He stated Trump’s declaration that the U.S. ought to keep out of the struggle was the very best consequence that the the Syrians aligned in opposition to Assad might hope for.
Rebels have been releasing political detainees of the Assad authorities from prisons as they advance throughout Syria, taking cities. Moustafa pledged to reporters Saturday that opposition forces could be alert for any U.S. detainees amongst them and do their utmost to guard them.
Moustafa stated that features Austin Tice, an American journalist lacking for greater than a decade and suspected to be held by Assad.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham renounced al-Qaida in 2016 and has labored to rebrand itself, together with cracking down on some Islamic extremist teams and fighters in its territory and portraying itself as a protector of Christians and different non secular minorities.
Whereas the U.S. and United Nations nonetheless designate it as a terrorist group, Trump’s first administration instructed lawmakers that the U.S. was now not focusing on the group’s chief, Abu Mohammed al-Golani.
