U.S. President Barack Obama announced that he has approved the deployment of an additional 250 troops to Syria to support local forces in the fight against Islamic State (IS).Obama said on Monday in Hanover (Germany) that the troops are not going to lead the fight on the ground but help in assisting local forces in pushing IS back.
He said the political initiative for peace was also needed “to end the suffering in Syria”.
The president called on U.S. allies to contribute more military trainers and to boost economic support for Syria and Iraq.
Obama said a contingent of 50 U.S. Special Forces was sent to Syria late last year to assist Kurdish-led forces in their ground offensive against IS in northern Syria.
The U.S. has reportedly provided limited covert support to Syrian rebels.
But Obama has consistently been sceptical about the merits of intervention in Syria’s five-year-long civil war, in spite of calls from Turkey and Gulf allies for more support for rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and IS.
According to UN estimates, the Syria’s civil war, which started in 2011 after al-Assad’s forces launched a brutal crackdown against protests, has cost a quarter of a million lives and displaced half the country’s population.
