United States will send 250 more Special Forces in Syria for the fight against Islamic State 12504161

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Defence & Security News - United States
 
United States will send 250 more Special Forces in Syria for the fight against Islamic State.
United States will send 250 more Special Forces to Syria to help local forces fighting the Islamic State group, increasing to 300 the number of U.S. soldiers deployed in Syria.
     
United States will send 250 more Special Forces to Syria to help local forces fighting the Islamic State group, increasing to 300 the number of U.S. soldiers deployed in Syria. U.S. Special Forces soldiers attached to Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan, practice combat marksmanship skills training on a range, near Kabul province, Afghanistan, Feb. 24, 2014.
     
In December 2015, President Obama admitted publicly for the first time that a small contingent of 50 or so elite U.S. commandos has begun working inside Syria. Most of the additional 250 personnel will also be special operations forces, largely Army Green Berets. The group will also include an unknown number of medical and logistical troops to provide them with support.

Obama will explain his decision in a speech at 11:25 a.m. (0925 GMT) in Hanover, where he discussed the Syria crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday.

While Obama has resisted putting U.S. troops into Syria, where a five-year civil war has killed at least 250,000 people, he sent 50 U.S. special operations forces to Syria last year to perform counterterrorism missions.

A U.S. defense official said the decision is aimed in part at helping to grow the ranks of Arab fighters in a network of rebel groups, now dominated by Kurdish fighters, that the United States is backing as it battles the Islamic State.

For Iraq, United States will also increase the number of American military personnel fo the fight against ISIS.

 Last week, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the U.S. will send 200 more troops and a number of Apache helicopters to Iraq to assist in the fight to retake Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city that is currently under ISIS control.