US Marines Move Into Syria to Tackle ISIS

Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit armed with M777 Howitzers, which can fire 155mm shells, will assist the Syrian Democratic Forces militia coalition in its ground offensive against the militant Islamist group, the official said on Wednesday.

Also on Thursday, engineers restored two water pumping stations that feed water to the country’s largest city, Aleppo, in territory captured by the Syrian government from ISIS militants this week, state media reported.

There could be more Americans on the way to fight ISIS.

The presence of additional USA ground troops inside Syria – even miles from the frontline – would bring with it considerable risk.

Air strikes killed 23 civilians, including eight children, on Thursday in countryside around the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s base in Syria, a war monitoring group said.

The additional deployment comprises a total of 400 USA forces – both Marines and Army Rangers.

The situation became so severe that the USA deployed forces between the two to prevent them from fighting and to ensure the focus remains on ISIS. Talking to reporters last month in Baghdad, Defense Secretary James Mattis said of having a strong Turkish element in the Raqqa fighting force, “We’re still sorting it out”.

Although the Syrian army, with its ally Russian Federation, has made significant gains against ISIS over the past week or so, the Washington Post is reporting tonight that President Trump has for the first time sent regular U.S. military personnel into that country in combat positions.

A USA defense official would not speak to the size of the detachment deployed to Syria, but said it included elements of multiple artillery batteries, as well as support personnel, including infantry Marines, Military.com confirmed on March 8. The websites of the Departments of Defense and State, as well as those of the Army and Marines, do not mention the actions.

But Turkey regards the SDF as a cover for the Kurdish YPG militia, branded as a terrorist organization by Ankara.

At one air base the US military would only describe as being located in “Southwest Asia” due to host nation sensitivities, American F-15s and Belgian F-16s flew round-the-clock missions into Iraq and Syria. Votel also made it clear that the U.S. intervention was being carried out without the permission of the Syrian government.

IS could have as many as 4,000 fighters in Raqqa, according to United States estimates.

That the USA military is already considering plans to attack the new areas of ISIS’s territory suggests the focus on measuring ISIS strength is in their physical infrastructure. They have also declined to specify the exact location of the forces or how many are there.

Photographs and videos posted on social media in recent days have shown convoys of USA troops, including Stryker armored vehicles and Humvees, heading through the northern Syrian countryside trailing big Stars and Stripes flags.