MILITARY/SYRIA: “Troops allied with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad are determined to ‘end the presence of the US’ in the country, Syria’s state-run news agency, SANA, said Monday [1-15-18], citing an official at the regime’s Foreign Ministry.
The official told SANA that the Assad-aligned Syrian Arab Army would thwart the ‘conspiracy, end the presence of the US, its agents and tools in Syria, establish full control over the entire Syrian territory and preserve the country’s sovereignty.’
The US maintains some 2,000 troops in Syria and has said its forces will continue to back local anti-ISIS forces there until the extremist group is defeated and the area is stabilized.
The Syrian statement comes after the US-led coalition fighting ISIS announced plans Sunday to boost border security in the region, a move that Syrian and Turkish officials have said would destabilize the region…
The over 50,000-strong Syrian Democratic Forces are a mix of Kurdish and Arab fighters and have been the primary US-backed force fighting ISIS in Syria.
The Syrian official said the US decision ‘came within the framework of its destructive policies which aim at fragmenting the region, fueling tensions and conflicts and hindering solutions to its crises.’…
The coalition has stressed that the border force training is focused solely on security and not on other border activities like customs or immigration.”
–Ryan Browne, “Syrian army vows to eject US troops,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Jan. 15, 2018 02:44pm