Approximately 200 more American troops are being deployed to Syria to assist Kurdish and Arabic forces who are fighting to oust Islamic State militants from Raqqa, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Saturday.
The additional troops will include special operations forces whose predominant focus will be training and advising non-U.S. forces in the region who remain committed to combatting the Islamic State.
“These uniquely skilled operators will join the 300 U.S. special operations forces already in Syria, to continue organizing, training, equipping and otherwise enabling capable, motivated, local forces to take the fight to ISIL,” Carter said at a security conference in Bahrain.
Currently, there are a “couple thousand” frontline fighters for the Islamic State in Raqqa and about 18,000 in Iraq and Syria altogether, a senior defense official told reporters after Carter’s remarks.
The Pentagon chief said the U.S. hopes the deployment of additional troops, combined with anti-Islamic State forces already in the region, will put more pressure on the Islamic State terror group in Raqqa, which it considers the capital of its “caliphate.”
“The United States has interests here that it cannot walk away from,” Carter noted, adding that regional powers to which radical Islamic extremism poses a threat should be willing to do more to help the U.S. combat it.
“I would ask you to imagine what U.S. military and defense leaders think when they have to listen to complaints sometimes that we should do more, when it’s plain to see that all too often, the ones complaining aren’t doing enough themselves,” he said.
President Obama, who recently delivered his final speech on counterterrorism, approved the deployment of additional troops last week, Carter said.
