Posted on 06/10/2018 7:01:14 AM PDT by Texas Fossil
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis linked Friday the pullout of US-led coalition forces from Syria to an agreement on a political process.
Speaking at a meeting of coalition defense ministers at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Mattis said: “As the operations ultimately draw to a close, we must avoid leaving a vacuum in Syria that can be exploited by the (Bashar) Assad regime or its supporters.”
He added that in Syria, “leaving the field before the special envoy Staffan de Mistura achieves success in advancing the Geneva political process we all signed for under the UN security council resolution would be a strategic blunder, undercutting our diplomats and giving the terrorists the opportunity to recover.”
Meanwhile, ISIS terrorists launched a surprise assault as the group’s suicide bombers detonated their explosives in a wave of attacks in Syria’s the Boukamal.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said this “attack is considered the most violent since the organization lost its presence in the Boukamal city and the west banks of Euphrates River” in November 2017.
The monitor said the sound of at least 10 violent explosions were heard from the outskirts of the Boukamal and its vicinity, as 6 ISIS members blew themselves up using explosive belts and 4 others using booby-trapped vehicles against positions of regime forces and their allies, before entering and controlling some parts of the city.
However, sources in Damascus later denied that ISIS militants had taken control of the city.
Separately, Hezbollah reportedly rejected to meet Russian demands to pull out from areas in the countryside of Homs, while Iran seemed to be setting conditions to its withdrawal from southern Syria.
Early this month, Moscow and Tel Aviv held advanced talks concerning southern Syria and agreed to keep Assad forces in the area and to allow their deployment at the border with Israel, in exchange of the withdrawal of Iranian fighters.
The Syrian Observatory reported on Friday that with the expansion of Russian ambitions and the Iranian search for gains in Syria, the gap between both parties is widening on Syrian territory.
Sources confirmed to the monitor that the Russian-Iranian dispute in Syria was on the rise with rising Iranian intransigence in carrying out Russia’s dictates.
“The Observatory received information that the command of the Russian Forces asked the Lebanese Hezbollah to withdraw its members and forces from al-Dabaa airbase and the bases located in the western and southwestern countryside of Homs,” but Hezbollah has so far failed to do so, it said.
Iran has not changed the size of its forces in Syria, estimated at 32,000 non-Syrian fighters.
The Observatory said that since the start of the Syrian revolution in March 2011 until May 2018, around 7,806 non-Syrians and mostly Shi’ites who fought under the banner of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and their militias were killed in Syria. They include Afghans, Iraqis and Asians.
In addition, around 1,649 Hezbollah fighters were killed during the war across the country.
About source: http://www.syriahr.com/en/?page_id=1030
I see nothing in this report that I would dispute. There are a number of background things that are being discussed in some circles that are not touched upon here. But it is informative.
Kill ISIS and go home...that is the mission.
Not this nebulus 'avoid a vacuum' bullshit.
He has not lost sight of that goal.
There are things afoot that will change your opinion of our goals. Just was it short while.
The alliances are shifting.
I wrote: “Just was it short while.”
Should read: Just wait a short while.
We were there illegally with a small contingency.less than 2000 which the president promised to remove 6 months ago.. We need to get out. I am sure we fought well but our impact was minuscule compared to the slaughter of isis by the Syrian/ Russian/Iranian forces successful effort . My guess is that we contributed less than 5% to this much needed victory. Now we don’t dictate terms of our leaving. I find that laughable.
So Mattis admits the whole thing was about regime change all along, never about fighting ISIS. A national embarrassment, to have our forces fighting on behalf of the Sunni jihadi forces.
What’s to prevent ISIS from springing back up? How do even know who to kill or how many of them there are or where they are or what could lead to their resurgence once we’re gone?
You can pretend this is easy stuff. It isn’t.
Mattis‘ Syria mission is to prolong the civil war.
It’s Obama’s Arab Spring legacy.
Changing goals = typical neocon bs.
The vacuum left when we pulled out of Iraq and its results as well as the Libya vacuum with the death of Qaddafi should be enough of a lesson for you. Mattis knows a helluva lot more about the situation than you do.
Nope.
President Trump has made it clear that the mission is to kill ISIS and go home. Instead the US military has been sitting on its hands in Syria for months, essentially protecting ISIS from attack.
I'd give Sec. Mattis 90 days to remove US forces or get fired.
Yep—as if some sort of “UN process” is going to be better—or ever end!
*** What’s to prevent ISIS from springing back up? ***
Right now the ISIS pockets are situated close to the American Military Bases in Syria. Funny, the US seems to have little interest in getting rid of them.
I guess you should let CJTF-OIR J2 know. Or maybe you should be the new commander, then we’d WIN or something.
Concurring bump...after months of inaction, it took the Iraqi air force coming in from the East to put some licks on the ISIS training camps situated behind US lines in southeast Syria.
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