Tag Archives: U.S. troops

Trump again threatens to shut government over wall funding

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before he boards the Marine One helicopter to begin his travel to Mississippi from the White House in Washington, U.S. November 26, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said he would “totally be willing” to shut down the federal government unless Congress authorized $5 billion to fund his long-promised wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, according to a Politico interview published on Wednesday.

Trump also told the news outlet, in the interview conducted on Tuesday, that the $5 billion request would pay for physical barrier alone, and that additional funding would be needed for other border security measures.

In a separate interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday, the Republican president said that if Congress does not fund the wall he might try to get it done another way. He referred to his ordering of U.S. troops to the border in October to install “barbed wire and fencing and various other things.”

U.S. lawmakers must act to pass a spending bill by Dec. 7 to fund some government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security that oversees the border and immigration.

Trump has not followed through on previous threats to shut down the U.S. government over the border wall funding. But with his fellow Republicans set to lose control of the House of Representatives in January following Democrats’ gains in elections this month, Trump’s comments have raised concern that this time he may not back down.

Republicans will maintain their control of the Senate next year but still, need some Democratic support to pass spending legislation.

Democrats have refused to support Trump’s border wall, which was a major part of his 2016 election platform, but have backed other border security measures.

Trump told Politico on Tuesday that he saw little need to work with Congress over immigration reforms to address the roughly 700,000 so-called Dreamers, young adults who were brought to the United States illegally as children.

Instead, he said he wants to see first how court challenges play out over an Obama-era program that allowed Dreamers to stay in the country.

If the courts ultimately rule against the program, then he would be willing to negotiate over “border security and everything else,” he told Politico.

Legislation to protect the Dreamers has so far failed to pass Congress.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg, Chizu Nomiyama and Frances Kerry)

Trump likely to give U.S. troops authority to protect immigration agents

A migrant, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the United States, poses for a photo after climbing up the border fence between Mexico and United States while moving to a new shelter in Mexicali, Mexico November 19, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

By Idrees Ali and Lizbeth Diaz

WASHINGTON/TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is likely to give U.S. troops authority to protect immigration agents stationed along the U.S. border with Mexico if they come under threat from migrants seeking to cross into the United States, a U.S. official said on Monday.

Ahead of U.S. congressional elections earlier this month, Trump denounced the approach of a caravan of migrants as an “invasion” that threatened American national security, and he sent thousands of U.S. troops to the border to help secure it.

Currently, the troops do not have authority to protect U.S. Customs and Border Patrol personnel. The new authority could be announced on Tuesday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

U.S. officials briefly closed the busiest border crossing from Mexico early on Monday to add concrete barricades and razor wire amid concerns some of the thousands of Central American migrants at the border could try to rush the crossing.

Northbound lanes at the San Ysidro crossing from Tijuana to San Diego, California, were temporarily closed “to position additional port hardening materials,” a U.S. CBP spokesperson said.

A Department of Homeland Security official, who requested anonymity, told reporters on a conference call that U.S. officials had heard reports some migrants were intending to run through border crossings into California.

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the United States, move to a new shelter in Mexicali, Mexico November 19, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the United States, move to a new shelter in Mexicali, Mexico November 19, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

The closing was rare for the station, which is one of the busiest border crossings in the world with tens of thousands of Mexicans heading every day into the United States to work or study.

“Today was a lost day of work. I already called my boss to tell her that everything was closed and I did not know what time I would be able to get in,” said Maria Gomez, a Mexican woman who crosses the border every day for work. “I cannot believe this is happening.”

Trump had remained mostly silent about the caravan since the Nov. 6 vote, but on Monday he posted a photo on Twitter showing a fence that runs from the beach in Tijuana into the ocean now covered with razor wire.

Critics charged that his talk of a migrant “invasion” was an effort to rouse his political base ahead of the elections.

Officials have stressed that the 5,900 active-duty U.S. troops on the border are not there in a law enforcement capacity and that there are no plans for them to interact with migrants.

Instead, their mission is to lend support to the CBP, and they have been stringing up concertina wire and erecting temporary housing.

The commander of the mission told Reuters last week that the number of troops may have peaked, and he would soon look at whether to begin sending forces home or shifting some to new border positions.

About 6,000 Central Americans have reached the border cities of Tijuana and Mexicali, according to local officials. More bands of migrants are making their way toward Tijuana, with around 10,000 expected.

Hundreds of local residents on Sunday massed at a monument in a wealthy neighborhood of Tijuana to protest the arrival of the migrants, with some carrying signs that said “Mexico first” and “No more migrants.”

Last month, thousands of Central American migrants began a long journey from Honduras through Mexico toward the United States to seek asylum.

Other bands of mostly Salvadorans followed, with a small group setting off on Sunday from San Salvador.

(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler and Cynthia Osterman)

Exclusive: U.S. troop levels at Mexico border likely at peak – commander

FILE PHOTO: Lt. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan, commander of U.S. Army North 5th Army, visits the San Ysidro border crossing with Mexico in San Diego, California, U.S. November 9, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By Phil Stewart

BASE CAMP DONNA, Texas (Reuters) – The number of U.S. troops at the border with Mexico may have peaked at about 5,800, the U.S. commander of the mission told Reuters, noting he would start looking next week at whether to begin sending forces home or perhaps shifting some to new border positions.

The outlook by Lieutenant General Jeffrey Buchanan, while not definitive, suggests that the high-profile military mission could soon achieve its goal of helping harden the border ahead of the expected arrival of caravans of Central American migrants in the coming weeks.

The deployment, which critics have called a pre-election political stunt by President Donald Trump, was initially expected to reach more than 7,000 forces, acting in support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis authorized the mission through Dec. 15 and while Buchanan did not rule out an extension, he did not think one appeared likely at this point, based on the current set of tasks assigned to the military.

“It is a hard date. And we have no indications that CBP is going to need us to do our work for longer than that,” Buchanan said on Wednesday at Base Camp Donna in Texas, as Mattis toured the site near the Mexico border.

He acknowledged that there could be new requests, saying: “If we get an extension, we get an extension. But I’ve got no indications of that so far.”

Asked whether he thought the troop levels had peaked, Buchanan said: “I do. We might increase by a hundred here or there, but probably not.”

Trump’s politically charged decision to send U.S. troops to the border with Mexico came ahead of U.S. congressional elections last week, as Trump sought to strengthen border security as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration.

Trump’s supporters, including Republicans in Congress, have embraced the deployment.

But critics have said it was designed to drive Republican voters to the polls. They have scoffed at Trump’s comparison of caravans of Central American migrants, including women and children, fleeing poverty and violence, to an “invasion.”

Mattis defended the deployment on Wednesday, saying the mission was “absolutely legal,” justified and was improving military readiness.

‘RIGHTSIZING’

Buchanan also said his mission guidelines were clear – to support CBP personnel. He said his work was apolitical.

“I’m not being directed to do anything unnatural from above me,” said Buchanan, who is commander of U.S. Army North.

The Pentagon says there are no plans for U.S. forces to interact with migrants and instead have been carrying out support tasks for CBP, like stringing up concertina wire and building temporary housing for themselves and CBP personnel.

In recent days, up to 1,000 migrants linked to the caravans have arrived in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, with a similar number expected to arrive in the next day or so. Thousands more could arrive in border towns over the coming days as the bulk of the caravans arrive.

Buchanan estimated that about 5,800 troops were deployed in total, with about 1,500 in California, 1,500 in Arizona and 2,800 in Texas. Buchanan acknowledged he might shift forces east or west along the border if needed.

Mattis told reporters earlier on Wednesday that U.S. soldiers were making rapid progress erecting barriers along the border and estimated the first, construction phase of the U.S. military effort could be completed within 10 days.

Buchanan suggested troops would go home once they had fulfilled requests by CBP.

“At some point in time, I’m not going to keep troops here just to keep them here. When the work is done, we’re going to start downsizing some capability,” Buchanan said.

Buchanan would need to make any recommendations on redeployment of troops to General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the head of U.S. Northern Command. O’Shaughnessy would then report to Mattis.

He suggested a recommendation could be made in the near future.

“I’m looking as early as next week to start thinking through rightsizing if we need to change. Or do I need to shift (troops elsewhere on the border),” Buchanan said, without predicting when changes might occur.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)

Mattis defends Mexico border deployment in first troop visit

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen tour Base Camp Donna in Donna, Texas, U.S., November 14, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Stewart

By Phil Stewart

BASE CAMP DONNA, Texas (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis defended the deployment of thousands of troops to the border with Mexico as he traveled there on Wednesday, saying the mission was “absolutely legal” and justified, and that it was improving military readiness.

President Donald Trump’s politically charged decision to send U.S. troops to the Mexico border came ahead of U.S. midterm congressional elections last week, as Trump sought to strengthen border security as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration.

Trump’s supporters, including Republicans in Congress, have embraced the deployment.

But critics have assailed it as a political stunt to drive Republican voters to the polls. They have scoffed at Trump’s comparison of caravans of Central American migrants, including women and children, to an “invasion.”

Mattis, speaking to a small group of reporters traveling with him, rejected criticism and said the deployment was the right thing to do.

“It’s very clear that support to border police or border patrol is necessary right now,” Mattis said, noting that that was the assessment of the Department of Homeland Security.

He added the deployment was deemed legal by Trump administration attorneys and was improving readiness by giving troops more experience in rapid deployment.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis alongside U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, addresses troops at Base Camp Donna in Donna, Texas, U.S., November 14, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Stewart

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis alongside U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, addresses troops at Base Camp Donna in Donna, Texas, U.S., November 14, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Stewart

The visit took Mattis near the Texas town of Donna, where U.S. troops have set up a base camp near a border crossing point with Mexico. General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the head of U.S. Northern Command, greeted him as he landed.

Mattis said U.S. soldiers were making rapid progress erecting barriers along the border and estimated the first, construction phase of the U.S. military effort could be completed within 10 days.

“I would anticipate with what we’ve been asked to do so far, probably within a week to 10 days, we’ll have done what’s needed,” Mattis told the reporters. “Of course, it will be a dynamic situation and there will be new requests coming in.”

Mattis said the U.S. military was also rehearsing helicopter operations to help support U.S. border personnel, potentially flying them to new locations if the caravans of migrants shift direction.

The deployed U.S. troops are not expected to directly interact with migrants, most are unarmed, and they are only assigned tasks that support U.S. border personnel, including building temporary lodging.

Standing alongside Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, Mattis told troops their job was to back up Nielsen’s agency and to ignore the media.

“Now there’s all sorts of stuff in the news and that sort of thing. You just concentrate on what your company commander, your battalion commander tells you,” Mattis said.

“If you read all that stuff, you’ll go nuts … You know what your mission is here. You’ve had to deploy on short notice to a non-traditional location and do your jobs. So you focus on doing that.”

SCRUTINY FROM CONGRESS

Trump’s Democratic opponents have threatened to investigate the matter once they take control of the House of Representatives early next year after gaining a majority in the House in the midterm elections.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, told Reuters that Trump had used the military “as a prop to stoke fear and score political points.”

“We will soon be finally able to conduct oversight of this gross abuse and the President’s many failed border security policies,” said Thompson, who is expected to lead the committee when the Democrats take control of the House in January.

It is unclear how long the deployment will last. Mattis initially authorized it through mid-December but it could be extended.

Mattis estimated about 5,900 troops were participating in the border mission. The U.S. military has offered a breakdown accounting for 5,600 of them, estimating about 2,800 troops in Texas, 1,500 in Arizona and another 1,300 in California.

Asked whether troops’ families should expect their loved ones to remain deployed through Thanksgiving or even Christmas, Mattis declined to speculate.

“We are a 365-day-a-year military. Rain or Shine. Light or dark. Cold weather or hot weather,” he said, declining to estimate costs of the deployment until he had better data.

Trump railed against illegal immigration to win the 2016 presidential election and has shown no signs of easing up on the issue in the wake of last week’s vote.

Last week, he effectively suspended the granting of asylum to migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, seeking fresh ways to block thousands of Central Americans traveling in caravans from entering the United States.

Mattis compared the mission to other deployments in the past, largely comprised of U.S. National Guard, during Democratic and Republican administrations.

“We determined that the mission was absolutely legal and this was also reviewed by Department of Justice lawyers. It’s obviously a moral and ethical mission to support our border patrolmen,” Mattis said.

“There’s nothing new under the sun.”

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Russia vows consequences after Norway invites more U.S. Marines

U.S. Marines test night optics during Advanced Naval Technology Exercise 2018 (ANTX-18) at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, U.S. March 20, 2018. U.S. Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Rhita Daniel/Handout via REUTERS

OSLO (Reuters) – Russia vowed on Thursday to retaliate for a plan by Norway to more than double the number of U.S. Marines stationed there.

Oslo announced on Tuesday that it would ask the United States, its NATO ally, to send 700 Marines to train in Norway from 2019, against 330 at present, and said the additional troops would be based closer to the Russian border.

“This makes Norway less predictable and could cause growing tensions, triggering an arms race and destabilizing the situation in northern Europe,” the Russian Embassy said in a statement on its Facebook page.

“We see it as clearly unfriendly, and it will not remain free of consequence.”

Oslo has grown increasingly concerned about Russia since Moscow annexed of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, while adding that it does not regard its much larger neighbor as a direct threat.

The U.S. Marines were scheduled to leave at the end of this year after an initial contingent arrived in January 2017 to train for winter conditions. They are the first foreign troops to be stationed in Norway since World War Two.

The initial decision to welcome the Marines had prompted Moscow to say it would worsen bilateral relations and escalate tensions on NATO’s northern flank.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Northern Fleet launched a large naval exercise in the Arctic Barents Sea. Later this year, Norway will host its biggest NATO maneuver in decades.

(Reporting by Camilla Knudsen and Terje Solsvik; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Deja vu for U.S. troops celebrating Christmas in Iraq again

U.S. soldiers enjoy a Christmas dinner at an army base in Karamless town, east of Mosul,

By Stephen Kalin

EAST OF MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – This is the third Christmas that Staff Sergeant Magdiel Asencio is spending in Iraq. For Sergeant First Class Noel Alvarado, it is number four. And so it is with many U.S. troops stationed less than a hour’s drive from the front line with Islamic State.

Few thought they would be back nearly 14 years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, sparking an al Qaeda-backed insurgency and throwing the country into a sectarian civil war.

Yet here they are, albeit with a fraction of the numbers and a much narrower mission. The roughly 5,200 U.S. troops presently stationed in Iraq are part of an international coalition helping local forces retake the third of their country seized by Islamic State more than 2-1/2 years ago.

Their current target is Mosul, the jihadists’ last major stronghold in the country. Iraqi forces control around a quarter of the city, but fierce counter-attacks have rendered progress slow and punishing.

Asencio served in Mosul during the initial invasion, first to provide artillery support and then as infantry.

“It was more of a wild wild west then. We didn’t know if something was going to go down and when they needed you to call for fires,” he said, standing beside a field artillery unit that hits Islamic State targets inside Mosul nearly every day.

“It’s a little more calm this time around. We still shoot, we know we’re here in support of the Iraqi army. There’s still enemy out there but we’re not as into actual direct combat as we were back then.”

Many battalion commanders previously served multiple tours in Iraq, often punctuated by combat in Afghanistan. There are even some soldiers in their first tour here whose fathers missed Christmases with them a decade ago to be in Iraq.

“I thought back in 2011 when we closed it all out, it was going to be finalised then,” said Alvarado, referring to the withdrawal of U.S. troops that year.

“But being back here is totally different. I’ve seen (the Iraqi army) pick themselves up a lot. They have a better standard now.”

The Iraqi military and police dropped their weapons and fled in 2014 in the face of Islamic State’s assault, despite far superior numbers and billions of dollars in U.S. training and equipment.

The coalition has retrained tens of thousands of local troops in the past two years and provides advice on military strategy and planning, as well as artillery support and air strikes that are indispensable to the war against Islamic State.

“Anything we can do to assist them in their operation forward with us not actually squeezing the trigger,” said Lieutenant Colonel Stuart James. “So we’ll move forward with them, but we’re not the ones that make contact.”

A top commander told Reuters that U.S. forces were embedding more extensively with Iraqi troops in order to accelerate the Mosul campaign, which started on Oct. 17.

SPARTAN LIVING

Coalition advisors were initially concentrated at a high-level headquarters in Baghdad but have fanned out over the past two years to spartan outposts like this one about 15 kilometers (10 miles) east of Mosul to stay near advancing troops.

“Merry Christmas from the most forward TAA at the tip of the spear,” James said, using a military acronym for the compound.

The austere outpost nestled in an ancient Christian region has few permanent structures, since the troops plan to move on when the Iraqi forces they are advising advance.

Heavy rain turned much of the grounds into thick mud on Sunday as soldiers huddled inside two dining tents for a special holiday meal where a plastic Christmas tree and a Santa Claus figurine flanked one entrance.

Outside, a soldier in a Santa hat did pull-ups at a makeshift gym.

This is a far cry from the luxurious facilities at the sprawling compound the U.S. military once maintained inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone and other big bases that have since been handed over to the Iraqis.

Yet Alvarado is not too torn up about spending another Christmas away from home.

“As long as my troops are OK and my family back home they’re OK and we’re supporting that, then I’m fine with it,” he said.

(Editing by Ed Osmond)

Shi’ite Cleric al-Sadr orders followers to target U.S. troops

Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is seen during a protest against corruption at Tahrir Square in Baghdad

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Powerful Shi’ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr instructed his followers on Sunday to target U.S. troops deploying to Iraq as part of the military campaign against Islamic State.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday the Pentagon would dispatch 560 additional troops to help Iraqi forces retake the northern city of Mosul in an offensive planned for later this year.

Sadr, who rose to prominence when his Mahdi Army battled U.S. troops after the 2003 invasion, posted the comments on his official website after a follower asked for his response to the announcement.

“They are a target for us,” Sadr said, without offering details.

The Mahdi Army was disbanded in 2008, replaced by the Peace Brigades, which helped push back Islamic State from near Baghdad in 2014 under a government-run umbrella, and maintains a presence in the capital and several other cities.

Sadr, who commands the loyalty of tens of thousands of supporters, is also leading a protest movement that saw demonstrators storm Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone government district twice this year, hampering parliament for weeks.

The new troop deployment, which is expected to happen within weeks, would raise the number of U.S. forces in Iraq to around 4,650, far below the peak of about 170,000 reached during the nearly nine-year occupation.

Other Shi’ite militias, particularly those backed by Iran, have made similar pledges to attack U.S. soldiers in the past year, but the only casualties since American forces returned to Iraq to battle Islamic State two years ago have come at the hands of the Sunni militant group.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Peter Cooney)

U.S. Military likely to seek additional troops in Iraq

U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, commander, U.S. Central Command, briefs the media at the Pentagon in Washington, U.S. April 29, 2016 about the investigation of the airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders trauma center in Kunduz, Afghanistan

By Phil Stewart

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The U.S. military expects to seek additional troops in Iraq, even beyond the hundreds announced this week, as the campaign against the Islamic State advances, the head of the U.S. military’s Central Command told Reuters.

“As we continue on the mission, I think there will be some additional troops that we will ask to bring in,” U.S. Army General Joseph Votel said in an interview in Baghdad on Thursday, without disclosing a number.

Votel, who oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East, said the size of possible future increases were still being discussed within military circles. He did not offer details on the timing of any requests to President Barack Obama’s administration.

His remarks came just three days after Obama’s administration announced a 560 troop increase as part of an effort to facilitate an Iraqi offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city.

Most of those troops will work out of Qayara air base, which Iraqi forces recaptured from Islamic State militants last week.

They plan to use Qayara as a staging ground for an offensive to retake Mosul.

Votel suggested future requests would similarly be tailored to particular stages of the campaign.

“We try to tie our requests to specific objectives we’re trying to achieve on the ground,” he said.

The recapture of Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto Iraqi capital, from which its leader declared a modern-day caliphate in 2014, would be a major boost for the plans by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the United States to weaken the militant group.

Abadi has pledged to retake Mosul by the end of the year.

Some U.S. officials caution that retaking the city without a plan to restore security, basic services and governance would be a major mistake and question the ability of Iraq’s Shi’ite-government in Baghdad to mend the sectarian divide fueling the conflict.

Votel broadly acknowledged concerns about the non-military aspects of the campaign but said he felt more upbeat after meetings on Wednesday with top Iraqi officials, including Abadi.

“While there is still a lot of work to do – a lot of work to do – I left more encouraged,” he said, stressing the importance that U.S.-backed military operations “pay off on the political side.”

With the latest troop increase, the United States has an official limit of just over 4,600 troops formally assigned to Iraq, although the actual figure is higher due to temporary assignments.

Obama has opposed recommitting the United States to another large-scale ground war in the Middle East and any deployment of forces to Iraq would likely need to be measured.

Republican leaders this week called on Obama to ask Congress for additional funds to pay for the deployment of more troops to Iraq, as Congress and the White House debate defense spending amid mandatory budget cuts.

NO WITHDRAWAL

As Islamic State militants have lost part of their self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria, they increasingly have turned to suicide attacks.

These included a bombing in the Iraqi capital last week that left nearly 300 people dead, the most lethal bombing of its kind since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Votel was speaking before a gunman killed 80 people and wounded scores when he drove a heavy truck at high speed into a crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in the French Riviera city of Nice. No group has claimed responsibility.

Votel cautioned that even after Islamic State eventually loses Mosul and the Syrian city of al-Raqqa, Americans should not expect a rapid, wholesale withdrawal from the country. “What we don’t want to do is declare victory and depart after that. I think we want to see this through,” Votel said.

If Islamic State fighters shift to other locations, outside those cities, Votel said it was important to have U.S. military resources in place “to ensure we can achieve that lasting defeat.”

“If there’s capabilities we don’t need, we will remove them. Likewise if there’s capabilities we do need that we don’t have, we’ll ask for them,” Votel said, describing an evolving campaign that won’t end soon.

(Reporting by Phillip Stewart; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Expansion of U.S. Ground Troops in Syria

Children walk near garbage in al-Jazmati neighbourhood of Aleppo

HANOVER, Germany (Reuters) – President Barack Obama announced on Monday the biggest expansion of U.S. ground troops in Syria since the civil war there began, saying he would dispatch 250 special forces soldiers to help local militia to build on successes against Islamic State.

The new deployment increases U.S. forces in Syria six-fold to about 300. While the total U.S. ground force is still small by comparison to other American deployments, defense experts said it could help shift the momentum in Syria by giving more Syrian fighters on the ground access to U.S. close air support.

Announcing the decision in Germany at the end of a six-day foreign tour, Obama said the move followed on victories over Islamic State that clawed back territory from the hard-line Sunni Islamist group.

“Given the success, I’ve approved the deployment of up to 250 additional U.S. personnel in Syria, including special forces to keep up this momentum,” Obama said in a speech at a trade fair in the northern city of Hanover, the last stop on a trip that has taken him to Saudi Arabia and Britain.

“They’re not going to be leading the fight on the ground, but they will be essential in providing the training and assisting local forces as they continue to drive ISIL back,” he added, using an acronym for Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

The U.S. military has led an air campaign against Islamic State since 2014 in both Iraq and Syria, but the campaign’s effectiveness in Syria has been limited by a lack of allies on the ground in a country where a complex, multi-sided civil war has raged for five years.

Russia launched its own air campaign in Syria last year, which has been more effective because it is closely coordinated with the government of President Bashar al-Assad, who is Moscow’s ally but a foe of the United States.

CLOSE AIR SUPPORT

Washington’s main allies on the ground have been a Kurdish force known as the YPG, who wrested control of much of the Turkish-Syrian border from Islamic State. The alliance is complex because U.S. ally Turkey is deeply hostile to the YPG.

“Presumably these are going to assist our Kurdish YPG friends to widen and deepen their offensive against IS in northeastern Syria,” Tim Ripley, defense analyst and writer for IHS Janes Defence Weekly magazine, said.

“You can provide more advisers to more units, to allow more units to receive close air support,” Ripley said, of the new U.S. deployment. “The more people you have, the more militia groups can have close air support that makes them more effective so they can advance in more areas.”

The Syria Democratic Forces, a U.S.-backed coalition set up in October to unite the Kurdish YPG and some Arab allies, said it welcomed Obama’s announcement but still wanted more help.

“Any support they offer is positive but we hope there will be greater support,” SDF spokesman Talal Silo said. “So far we have been supplied only with ammunition, and we were hoping to be supplied with military hardware …”

Ripley said Washington would still have to take a political decision to help the Kurds despite Turkish objections. Kurdish advances have largely stopped since February, with Turkey strongly objecting to the Kurds taking more territory.

“The real question has to be: are they going to let the Kurdish YPG forces actually go and attack and capture some territory? This is something the Americans have not been happy about because when the YPG forces attack and capture territory, it tends to anger the president of Turkey,” Ripley said.

If the Kurds are given the green light to advance with American air support, the main short-term objective could be sealing off the last stretch of the border that is not held by the Kurds or the government, west of the Euphrates river.

That would deny Islamic State access to the outside world, but would infuriate Turkey which regards the border as the main access route for other Sunni Muslim rebel groups it supports against Assad, and for aid to civilians in rebel areas.

THE RACE FOR RAQQA

U.S. special forces teams providing close air support could ultimately help the Kurds advance on Raqqa, Islamic State’s main Syrian stronghold and de facto capital.

“This places them in another quandary. Do they coordinate their attack on Raqqa with the Syrian army and the Russian air force, who are … advancing on Raqqa? … The question is who’s going to get there first,” Ripley said.

With German Chancellor Angela Merkel sitting in the audience, Obama also urged Europe and NATO allies to do more in the fight against Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

The group controls the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria and a swathe of territory in between, and has proven a potent threat abroad, claiming responsibility for major attacks in Paris in November and Brussels in March.

“Even as European countries make important contributions against ISIL, Europe, including NATO, can still do more,” Obama said ahead of talks later in the day with Merkel and the leaders of Britain, France and Italy.

European countries have mostly contributed only small numbers of aircraft to the U.S.-led mission targeting Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria.

Obama pledged to wind down wars in the Middle East when he was first elected in 2008. But in the latter part of his presidency he has found it necessary to keep troops in Afghanistan, return them to Iraq and send them to Syria, where the five-year civil war has killed at least 250,000 people.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, briefing reporters before Obama spoke, said U.S. forces “are not being sent there on a combat mission”.

In Iraq, Islamic State has been forced back since December when it lost Ramadi, capital of the western province of Anbar. In Syria, jihadist fighters have been pushed from the strategic city of Palmyra by Russian-backed Syrian government forces.

TALKS IN MELTDOWN, TRUCE IN TATTERS

But Washington’s lack of allies on the ground has meant its role in Syria has been circumscribed. The sudden entry of Moscow into the conflict last year has tipped the balance of power in favor of Assad, against a range of rebel groups supported by Turkey, other Arab states and the West.

Washington and Moscow sponsored a ceasefire between most of the main warring parties since February, which allowed the first peace talks involving Assad’s government and many of his foes to begin last month. However, those talks appear close to collapse, with the main opposition delegation having suspended its participation last week, and the ceasefire is largely in tatters. Islamic State is excluded from the ceasefire.

Fighting has increased in recent days near Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city, now split between rebel and government zones. A monitoring group said 60 people had been killed there in three days of intense fighting, including civilians killed by rebel shelling and government air strikes.

The Syrian government’s negotiator at the Geneva talks said a bomb hit a hospital near a Shi’ite shrine near Damascus, killing many innocent people and proving the government’s enemies were terrorists.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Andreas Rinke in Hanover, Jeff Mason and Kevin Drawbaugh in Washington, Michelle Martin in Berlin and Peter Graff in London; writing by Noah Barkin and Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership)