Akcakale (Turkey) - President Donald Trump ordered all US troops to withdraw farther south to avoid getting caught in the fighting.
Published: Mon 14 Oct 2019, 11:50 PM
Hundreds of Daesh supporters escaped from a displaced-persons camp in northern Syria on Sunday amid heavy clashes between invading Turkish-led forces and Kurdish fighters, and President Donald Trump ordered all US troops to withdraw farther south to avoid getting caught in the fighting.
The twin developments reflected growing chaos in Syria, where the Turkish offensive has raised fears it will destabilise the region, create another refugee crisis and allow the battered Daesh group to make a comeback. A US military official said that the situation across northeastern Syria was "deteriorating rapidly" and that American forces were cut off from the Kurdish fighters they had previously been allied with.
The official, who was not authorised to disclose operational details and spoke on condition of anonymity, said US troops on the ground are at risk of being "isolated" and cannot travel overland without a "high risk" of confrontation with Turkey-backed forces.
Defence Secretary Mark Esper told CBS' Face the Nation that the approximately 1,000 US troops in Syria are not leaving the country entirely but are trying to avoid becoming embroiled in the conflict.
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