Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the United States is preparing to evacuate approximately 1,000 U.S. troops form northern Syria as quickly as possible.
Esper’s comments come a week after the Trump administration unexpectedly announced their decision to withdraw troops from the area. The move, which has been criticized by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, has left the Kurds, a long time ally of the United States, to defend themselves from Turkey’s incursion.
“In the last 24 hours, we learned that [the Turks] likely intend to expand their attack further south than originally planned, and to the west,” Esper stated on Sunday’s edition of CBS’s Face The Nation. “We also have learned in the last 24 hours that the … SDF are looking to cut a deal, if you will, with the Syrians and the Russians to counterattack against the Turks in the north.”
“And so we find ourselves, as we have American forces likely caught between two opposing advancing armies, and it’s a very untenable situation,” he elaborated. “So, I spoke with the president last night, after discussions with the rest of the national security team, and he directed that we begin a deliberate withdrawal of forces from northern Syria.”
Esper later clarified that they are only withdrawing troops from northern Syria and not the whole country but added that northern Syria is “where most of our forces are.”
On Friday, U.S. Special Forces in the region came under Turkish shelling, which the country has insisted was a mistake. U.S. officials, however, are unsure if the move was deliberate as Turkey knows the locations of American forces in the area “down to the grid.”
