President Donald Trump has declined to say whether he intends to maintain current US troop levels in Syria.
“We’ll make a determination on that,” Trump told reporters on Thursday when asked if he intends to withdraw US troops deployed to Syria to fight ISIS.
“We’re not involved in Syria. Syria’s its own mess. They got enough messes over there. They don’t need us involved with everything.”
The US had said for years that there were about 900 troops in Syria, but the Pentagon acknowledged in December that US troop levels had surged to about 2,000.
There has long been friction between the US and Syria’s neighbors — Türkiye and Iraq — about the ongoing presence of American forces in Syria and the need to keep them at a particular level. Israel meanwhile has urged the US to maintain a presence in the country.
