U.S. eyes complete withdrawal of troops from Syria: U.S. officials

FILE PHOTO: U.S. forces set up a new base in Manbij, Syria May 8, 2018. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is considering a total withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria as it winds up its campaign to retake all of the territory once held by Islamic State, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump declared victory against the militant group in Syria on Wednesday and hinted that a withdrawal could be imminent, tweeting, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”

A decision to withdraw the last of about 2,000 troops, if confirmed, would upend assumptions about a longer-term U.S. military presence in Syria, which U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other senior U.S. officials have advocated to help ensure Islamic State cannot reemerge.

Trump has previously expressed a strong desire to bring troops home from Syria when possible, and his tweet on Wednesday showed he saw no further grounds for remaining.

FILE PHOTO: Syrian Democratic Forces and U.S. troops are seen during a patrol near Turkish border in Hasakah, Syria November 4, 2018. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Syrian Democratic Forces and U.S. troops are seen during a patrol near Turkish border in Hasakah, Syria November 4, 2018. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

U.S. officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, did not disclose details about the deliberations on the troop withdrawal, and the timing was not immediately clear.

But one official told Reuters that partners and allies had been consulted.

Two U.S. officials said a decision to withdraw had already been reached but that could not be immediately confirmed. It was unclear how soon a decision detailing any withdrawal plans might be announced.

The Pentagon declined to comment, saying only that it continued to work with partners in the region.

Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, often a Trump ally, said a withdrawal would have “devastating consequences” for the United States in the region and throughout the world.

“An American withdrawal at this time would be a big win for ISIS, Iran, (President) Bashar al Assad of Syria, and Russia,” Graham said in a statement, using the acronym ISIS for Islamic State.

Many of the remaining U.S. troops in Syria are special operations forces working closely with an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.

The partnership with the SDF over the past several years has led to the defeat of Islamic State in Syria but has also outraged NATO ally Turkey, which views Kurdish YPG forces in the alliance as an extension of a militant group fighting inside Turkey.

The deliberations on U.S. troops come as Ankara threatens a new offensive in Syria. To date, U.S. forces in Syria have been seen as a stabilizing factor in the country and have somewhat restrained Turkey’s actions against the SDF.

A complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria would still leave a sizeable U.S. military presence in the region, including about 5,200 troops across the border in Iraq. Much of the U.S. campaign in Syria has been waged by warplanes flying out of Qatar and other locations in the Middle East.

Still, Mattis and U.S. State Department officials have long fretted about leaving Syria before a peace agreement can be reached to end that country’s brutal civil war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced around half of Syria’s pre-war population of about 22 million.

In April, Mattis said: “We do not want to simply pull out before the diplomats have won the peace. You win the fight — and then you win the peace.”

Islamic State is also widely expected to revert to guerrilla tactics once it no longer holds territory. A U.S. withdrawal could open Trump up to criticism if Islamic State reemerged.

Trump has previously lambasted his predecessor, Barack Obama, for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq that preceded an unraveling of the Iraqi armed forces. Iraqi forces collapsed in the face of Islamic State’s advance into the country in 2014.

A pullout would allow other countries, like Iran, to increase their influence in Syria, experts said.

“If we withdraw then who fills the vacuum, who is able to stabilize and that is the million dollar question,” said Andrew Tabler, a Syria specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think-tank.

“The timing is hard to understand,” Tabler said.

LAST 1 PERCENT

Islamic State declared its so-called “caliphate” in 2014 after seizing large swathes of Syria and Iraq. The hardline Islamist group established its de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, using it as a base to plot attacks in Europe.

According to U.S. estimates, the group oversaw about 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles) of territory, with about 8 million people under Islamic State control. It had estimated revenues of nearly one billion dollars a year.

Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy for the global coalition to defeat Islamic State, said last week that the group was down to its last 1 percent of the territory it once held in its self-styled “caliphate.” The group has no remaining territory in Iraq.

Hajin, the group’s last major stronghold in Syria, is close to being seized by U.S.-backed SDF forces.

After losing Hajin, Islamic State will control a diminishing strip of territory along the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in the area where U.S.-backed operations are focused. The militants also control some desert terrain west of the river in territory otherwise controlled by the Damascus government and its allies.

But U.S. officials have warned that taking back the group’s territory would not be the same as defeating it.

“Even as the end of the physical caliphate is clearly now coming into sight, the end of ISIS will be a much more long-term initiative,” McGurk told a State Department briefing on Dec. 11.

U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned earlier in December that the United States had trained only about 20 percent of Syrian forces required to stabilize areas captured from Islamic State.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Frances Kerry)

U.S. lays barbed wire at border as migrant caravan draws closer

U.S. Marines work to move building materials as they harden the border with Mexico in preparation for the arrival of a caravan of migrants at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego, California, U.S., November 13, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By Lizbeth Diaz

TIJUANA (Reuters) – Hundreds of Central American migrants planning to seek asylum in the United States moved toward the country’s border with Mexico on Tuesday as U.S. military reinforced security measures, laying barbed wire and erecting barricades.

Some 400 migrants who broke away from the main caravan in Mexico City arrived in the border city of Tijuana on Tuesday by bus, according to a Reuters witness. Larger groups are expected to arrive in the coming days, human rights organizations said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he would travel to the border area on Wednesday, his first visit since the military announced that over 7,000 U.S. troops would go to the area as the caravan of mostly Hondurans has made its way through Mexico.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement that it would close lanes at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa crossings from Tijuana to allow the Department of Defense to install barbed wire and position barricades and fencing. Tijuana, in the Mexican state of Baja California, is at the westerly end of the border, around 17 miles (38km) from San Diego, California.

“CBP has been and will continue to prepare for the potential arrival of thousands of people migrating in a caravan heading toward the border of the United States,” Pete Flores, the agency’s director of field operations in San Diego, said in a statement, citing a “potential safety and security risk.”

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a firm stance against the caravan, which began its journey north on Oct. 13 and briefly clashed with security forces in the south of Mexico early on its route.

On Friday, Trump signed a decree that effectively suspended the granting of asylum for those who cross the border illegally, a move that could drastically slow claims at gates of entry.

But migrants planning to seek asylum in the United States said they were undeterred by the crackdown.

“I prefer to be in detention in the United States than to return to my country, where I know they are going to kill me for being different,” said Nelvin Mejía, a transgender woman who arrived in Tijuana on Monday with a group of about 70 people seeking asylum. “Last month, they killed my partner, and I do not want to end up like that.”

For years, thousands of mainly Central American immigrants have embarked on long journeys through Central America and Mexico to reach the United States. Many of them die in the attempt or are kidnapped by organized crime groups.

Several thousand more migrants in at least three caravan groups are making their way through Mexico toward the border.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; writing by Julia Love, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

U.S. nearly rules out terrorism after false ricin alert at Pentagon

FILE PHOTO: The Pentagon in Washington, U.S., is seen from aboard Air Force One, March 29, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. investigators have nearly ruled out terrorism after envelopes sent to a Pentagon mail sorting facility were falsely flagged for the possible presence of the deadly poison ricin, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

A Pentagon spokeswoman said tests so far showed that the alert was triggered by castor seeds, which ricin is derived from, as opposed to the deadly substance itself.

U.S. security and law enforcement officials separately said an active counter-terrorism investigation was not being conducted into the envelopes.

Ricin is found naturally in castor seeds but it takes a deliberate act to convert it into a biological weapon. Ricin can cause death within 36 to 72 hours from exposure to an amount as small as a pinhead. No known antidote exists.

One of the letters was addressed to U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the Pentagon said on Tuesday it had put its mail facility under quarantine. The Pentagon provided no further comment on Wednesday, referring reporters to law enforcement agencies.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball, Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Xi tells Mattis China won’t give up ‘one inch’ of territory

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, second from left, speaks during a meeting with China's Defense Minister Wei Fenghe at the Bayi Building in Beijing, China, June 27, 2018. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS

By Phil Stewart and Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – China is committed to peace and won’t cause “chaos” in the world, but cannot give up even an inch of territory that the country’s ancestors have left behind, Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday.

Mattis, a former Marine general, has been highly critical of China’s muscular military moves in the disputed South China Sea. The U.S. military even withdrew an invitation to China to join a multinational naval exercise that will start during Mattis’ visit, upsetting Beijing.

Mattis is visiting against a backdrop of spiraling tension between Beijing and Washington over trade.

Beijing is also deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions toward self-governing and democratic Taiwan, which is armed by the United States. China views the island as a sacred part of its territory.

Meeting in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Xi told Mattis that China had only peaceful intentions and would not “cause chaos,” state television reported.

Both countries’ common interests far outweigh their differences, but on territorial issues there can be no concessions, Xi added, without referring to specific areas.

“We cannot lose even one inch of the territory left behind by our ancestors. What is other people’s, we do not want at all,” state television cited Xi as saying.

Mattis, in comments in front of reporters, told Xi his talks had been “very, very” good.

“I am happy to be in China and we are assigning the same high degree of importance to the military relationship,” Mattis said.

Meeting earlier in the day, China’s defense minister told Mattis that only with mutual respect and by avoiding confrontation can China and the United States develop together.

“China upholds peaceful development, and China’s military unswervingly protects the country’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said, according to his ministry.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, left, and China's Defense Minister Wei Fenghe stand as the American national anthem is played during a welcome ceremony at the Bayi Building in Beijing, Wednesday, June 27, 2018. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via Reuters

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, left, and China’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe stand as the American national anthem is played during a welcome ceremony at the Bayi Building in Beijing, Wednesday, June 27, 2018. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via Reuters

“China and the United States can only develop together if we maintain no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,” Wei added.

“China and the United States’ two militaries must implement the consensus of the two countries’ leaders, increase mutual trust, strengthen cooperation and manage risks to turn ties between the two militaries into a factor for stability in the bilateral relationship.”

Mattis, the first Pentagon chief to visit China since 2014, told Wei he expected all of his conversations in Beijing would be characterized by an “open and honest” dialogue, like the one he had with Wei.

“The military-to-military relationship is critical to the broader relationship between our two countries,” Mattis added, in comments also in front of reporters.

Mattis invited Wei to visit him at the Pentagon.

Wei was similarly upbeat in his public remarks.

“Your visit to China this time is … a new positive factor to the military-to-military and state-to-state relationship,” said Wei, who only assumed his position in March.

TAIWAN TENSION

The Chinese defense ministry statement made only passing mention of the South China Sea, Taiwan and North Korea, citing Wei as telling Mattis what China’s positions were on those issues.

As Mattis arrived, Chinese state media said a formation of Chinese warships had been holding daily combat drills for more than a week in waters near Taiwan, and there have been frequent Chinese air force exercises near the island.

While China and the United States have tried hard to keep lines of communication between their militaries open, especially at the senior level, they are deeply suspicious of each other.

The United States accuses China of militarizing the South China Sea with its island-building work there, while China has been angered by U.S. naval patrols through the strategic waterway.

In May, the United States withdrew an invitation to China to attend a major U.S.-hosted naval drill, the Rim of the Pacific exercise, known as RIMPAC and previously attended by China, in response to what Washington sees as Beijing’s militarization of the South China Sea.

Still, the two have broad strategic common interests, such as ensuring peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.

China welcomed a historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un earlier this month in Singapore, where Kim reaffirmed a commitment to work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, while Trump said he would halt joint U.S.-South Korean “war games.”

(The story is refiled to removes extraneous words paragraphs five and nine, fixes typo paragraph seven.)

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Christian Shepherd and Michael Martina; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel)

Trump says to make fast decision after suspected Syrian chemical attack

A girl looks on following alleged chemical weapons attack, in what is said to be Douma, Syria in this still image from video obtained by Reuters on April 8, 2018. White Helmets/Reuters TV via REUTERS

By Steve Holland and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

WASHINGTON/AMMAN (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday condemned a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held town in Syria that killed dozens of people and said he would decide on a response probably by the end of the day.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting, Trump said he was talking to military leaders and would decide who was responsible for what he called a “heinous attack” on innocent Syrians — whether it was Russia, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, Iran, or all of them together.

“We’ll be making that decision very quickly probably by the end of the day. But we cannot allow atrocities like that,” Trump said. “Nothing is off the table,” he said, when asked if U.S. military action was a possibility.

Asked if there was any doubt over who was responsible for the attack, Trump said: “To me there’s not much of a doubt but the generals will figure it out probably over the next 24 hours.”

International bodies led by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were also trying to establish exactly what happened on Saturday in Douma, a besieged town in eastern Ghouta near Damascus.

The Syrian government and its ally Russia have denied involvement in the attack.

U.S. government sources said on Monday that the administration’s initial assessment suggested that a nerve agent was used but further evidence was needed to determine what specifically it was.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also said earlier he would not rule out military action such as air strikes if blame was proven. He accused Russia of falling short on its obligations to ensure that Syria abandoned its chemical weapons capabilities.

“The first thing we have to look at is why are chemical weapons still being used at all when Russia was the framework guarantor of removing all the chemical weapons,” Mattis told reporters.

Trump said on Sunday after initial reports of an attack that there would be a “big price to pay”.

A Syria medical relief group said at least 60 people had been killed and more than 1,000 injured in several sites in Douma.

The stakes were further raised on Monday when unidentified war planes struck a Syrian air base near Homs, killing at least 14 people, including Iranian personnel. Syria and Russia accused Israel of carrying out the attack.

Israel, which has struck Syrian army locations many times in the course of its neighbour’s seven-year-old civil war, has neither confirmed nor denied mounting the raid.

But Israeli officials said the Tiyas, or T-4, air base was being used by troops from Iran and that Israel would not accept such a presence in Syria by its arch foe.

The two incidents in Douma and Tiyas demonstrated the complex and volatile nature of the Syria war, which started in March 2011 as an anti-Assad uprising and now involves a number of countries and a myriad of insurgent groups.

Assad now has the upper hand in the conflict, largely thanks to Russian intervention on his side, but any international action could delay his efforts to bring it to close.

RANGE OF OPTIONS

The United Nations Security Council will meet on Monday following rival requests by Russia and the United States to discuss the situation. Senior officials in the Trump administration were also to meet in the White House.

Britain said it was working with its allies to agree a joint response to the reported chemical attack on Douma.

“If there is clear verified evidence of the use of chemical weapons and a proposal for action where the UK would be useful, then we will look at the range of options,” Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman said.

France said it would work closely with the United States on a response to the suspected chemical attack. Both countries agreed responsibility for the strike must be established.

President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke to Trump by telephone on Sunday, had issued repeated warnings previously that France would strike if proof of lethal chemical attacks were established. But Paris stopped short of apportioning blame on Assad’s forces for Saturday’s attack.

Trump had referred in a Tweet to “Animal Assad” and criticised Russia and Iran for backing the Syrian leader, directly naming Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said such allegations were false and a provocation. Lavrov also said the strike on the T-4 base was a dangerous development.

Syrian government forces had launched an air and ground assault on Douma, the last rebel-held town in the eastern Ghouta district, on Friday.

The Union of Medical Care Organizations (UOSSM) said at least 60 people had been killed by the alleged chemical attack.

“The numbers keep rising as relief workers struggle to gain access to the subterranean areas where gas has entered and hundreds of families had sought refuge,” it said.

One video shared by activists showed bodies of about a dozen children, women and men, some with foam at the mouth. Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

The OPCW, based in the Hague, said people were possibly gassed to death by a poisonous cocktail of sarin and chlorine.

Dr. Muhammad, a doctor in Ghouta quoted by UOSSM, said patients were coughing blood, a symptom not seen in previous chemical attacks.

U.N. war crimes investigators had previously documented 33 chemical attacks in Syria, attributing 27 to the Assad government, which has repeatedly denied using the weapons.

The United States fired missiles on a Syrian air base a year ago in response to the killing of dozens of civilians in a sarin gas attack in an opposition-held town in northwest Syria, blamed on Assad.

RED LINES

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitor, said at least 14 people were killed in Monday’s air strike on the T-4 base, including foreign fighters – a reference to Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia members, mostly from Iraq, Lebanon and Iran fighting alongside the Syrian army.

Iran’s Fars news agency said three Iranians were killed.

The Russian military said two Israeli F-15 war planes carried out the strike. Interfax news agency cited the Russian Defence Ministry as saying Syrian air defence systems had shot down five of eight missiles fired.

Syrian state news agency SANA, citing a military source, carried a similar report.

The Israeli government had no immediate comment.

Israeli Housing Minister Yoav Galant, while not confirming that Israel had carried out the attack, said his country had clear interests in Syria.

“We laid down red lines there, which said that we would not allow Syrian land to be a springboard for game-changing weaponry to Lebanon, we would not allow the building of an Iranian army in Syria and we would not allow the opening of another front on the Golan Heights,” he told Israel Radio.

“In this context we are taking action with all means, over time.”

In Washington, Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, urged Trump and his administration to destroy Assad’s air capabilities, enforce safe zones inside Syria, and target Assad directly.

“This president has the chance to do exactly the opposite of (former U.S. President Barack) Obama – send a strong signal that there’s a new sheriff in town and America’s back,” Graham told Fox News in an interview.

(Reporting by Nayera Abdallah, Suleiman Al-Khalidi, Ellen Francis, Maria Kiselyova, Dan Williams, John Irish, Matt Spetalnick; Writing by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Nick Tattersall)