The Pentagon said on Thursday that 2,000 American troops were in Syria, more than twice the number officials had cited for months.
Why the Defense Department delayed disclosing the number is unclear. Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters that he became aware of the additional troops on Thursday morning. They are in Syria on a “temporary” basis, he said, to support what he called the “core official deployed forces” participating in the Pentagon’s mission to keep Islamic State forces from reconstituting.
General Ryder said the increase in the number of troops was unrelated to the fall of President Bashar al-Assad to rebel forces in early December.
“Look, again, learned the number today, provided the number today,” he told reporters. “Part of the explanation is the sensitivity from a diplomatic and operation security standpoint. But again, given the difference in what we’ve been briefing and what the actual number is, just felt that it was important to get you that information.”
Since the Assad government’s collapse, Israel and Turkey have launched military operations in Syria. The United States, for its part, has conducted dozens of strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria to stop the militant group’s fighters from taking advantage of the shifting situation.
The Pentagon was asked repeatedly in recent days and weeks how many American troops were in Syria, and maintained that the number was 900.
The issue of American boots on the ground in Syria has something of a history. In 2019, President Donald J. Trump ordered all U.S. troops in Syria to return home, in an effort to end the American mission there. Pentagon officials balked, and Gen. Mark A. Milley, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talked Mr. Trump into allowing a limited number of troops to remain to safeguard oil fields, Mr. Trump said.
“We’re keeping the oil,” the president said at the time. “We left troops behind, only for the oil.”
After that, Pentagon leaders said little about the U.S. presence in Syria, but when asked, replied that 800 American troops were in the country.
More recently, they have put the number at 900.
The Pentagon has said that the troops in Syria are scattered among several bases, including al-Tanf, on the Syria-Iraq border, and in northeast Syria. U.S. and partner forces in a coalition that includes the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces have been working to keep pressure on Islamic State militants and to ensure that fighters who are detained do not end up back on the battlefield.
The Pentagon says U.S. troops also have provided security for displaced women and children. Many of them are relatives of Islamic State members who died fighting or were detained and who want to be repatriated — mostly back to Iraq.
The Biden administration and the Iraqi government say people in displacement camps are vulnerable to indoctrination by the Islamic State.
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