U.S. special forces in Syria violation of global law: Ex-US Marine

The USA announced the deployment of ground troops in Syria during the same week in which plans were made public for the stationing of 4,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops on Russia’s borders, and as provocative United States naval operations in the South China Sea raise the threat of a military confrontation with China.

“Deploying a handful of USA special operations forces to Syria will not change this situation significantly”, said Frederic Hof, Obama’s former Syria special adviser.

“I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria”, he said.

Reuters said that sources on Capitol Hill said the White House had made the decision after weeks of reflection on how to ramp up its efforts against the Islamic militants.

The new deployment of ground troops and planes drew a mixed reaction from Democrats who anxious about the deepening American involvement in the war and Republicans who said that the small US force was insufficient and disconnected from a broader, coherent strategy.

Elsewhere, 32 civilians, among them 12 children, were killed on Friday afternoon in air strikes on opposition-held areas of Syria’s second city Aleppo, the Observatory said.

In Alaska, U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter told reporters, “Our role fundamentally and the strategy is to enable local forces, but does that put us forces in harm’s way?”

The White House has long said that Assad’s ouster is essential to its ultimate goal of defeating the Islamic State because the Syrian president’s brutal tactics against Sunni rebels have drawn Sunni radicals from all over the world into the militant group’s ranks.

The SOF operators will stick in northern Syria, and will not take part in raids like their counterparts in Iraq have done, the official said, in part because U.S. forces have not worked as closely with the various Syrian rebel groups and do not have a relationship akin to that with the Iraqi security forces. Officials indicated the new mission would echo existing operations in Iraq, where military personnel coordinate local ground forces, channel weapons supplies and direct air support.

“We are going to continue to innovate, to build on what works”, Carter said. Although not characterized as a response, the dispatch of US troops further complicates a kaleidoscopic battlefield with varied forces and sometimes murky allegiances. That was a return to Iraq for the US military after the 2011 withdrawal, which was a fulfillment of Obama’s campaign promise to end the war he inherited from President George W. Bush.

Earnest later reiterated that the US believes the long-term solution to problems in Syria and to the threat of ISIS must also involve political, not just military, means. He added that they are likely to leave within November and will work directly with the local groups, including the Kurds, the Syrian Arab Coalition and Turkmen. The USA has bombed targets in Syria for more than a year, and efforts to recruit and train moderate rebels have largely failed.

American officials say the talks marked a significant new phase, one they hope is an endgame for Assad’s reign.