Report: US Planning to Deploy 400 Military Officers to Help Train Terrorists in Syria
The US army is planning to deploy hundreds of troops to help train the Syrian opposition militants, media reports said.
Senior US officials met Syrian opposition leaders in Istanbul this week to discuss deployment of more than 400 US troops, LBC TV reported.
The plan is part of the US strategy to compensate for the recent defeats of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group in Eastern and Northern Syria.
Also in the past 24 hours, Syrian armed forces, in a series of massive operations, attacked militants’ strongholds in the Southwestern province of Daraa, which resulted into killing, wounding and arrest of so many anti-government fighters in the battlefronts.
The Syrian soldiers attacked militants’ gathering centers near Zemrin town in al-Sanamein city in the Northern countryside of Daraa, where too many fighters were killed and injured and so many others fled the battlefields.
A long convoy of rebels’ vehicles loaded by weapons and ammunitions was targeted by the army soldiers in Rasm al-Zahr in al-Lajat area, North of Daraa, killing several terrorists there.
Elsewhere, so many terrorists, including Saudi, Palestinian, Tunisian and Libyan nationalities, were killed during army operations in various areas in the Northwestern province of Idlib.
Syrian army raided gathering centers of al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham group in the surrounding of Batenti town, 30 km North of Idlib city, killing so many militants, including a Saudi national nicknamed Abu Muthana and a Palestinian named Huzaima al-Falastini.
Meantime, nine militants were killed in Ariha area in army soldiers’ attacks.
Near Kinsafra in Jabal al-Zawieh, 25 km South of Idlib city, army troops killed several members of al-Nusra Front, including Tunisians and Libyans.
Also, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said up to 700 Turkish nationals have joined the ISIL, sounding the alarm over the risk of attacks inside Turkey if the extremists return home.
“There are around 500-700 Turkish citizens who have joined the ranks of the ISIL,” Çavuşoğlu said.
“A common concern about the foreign fighters is: What will happen when they return to their homeland? We have this concern too,” he added.
Syria has been the scene of insurgency since 2011 when certain western powers and their regional allies voiced loudly that Syrian protests have no diplomatic solution and they started supplying the country’s opposition groups with their arms and funds.
In 2014, specially after victory of President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s presidential election, the army has gained upper hand in its anti-terrorism campaign, and has been partly successful in sealing borders with Turkey and Jordan.
