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In Syria, US Commanders Hold the Line — and Wait for Biden

Rogue Valley

Lead or get out of the way
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3/21/21
NEAR DERIK, SYRIA — On a bright blue afternoon in February, troops from the Louisiana National Guard load into up-armored vehicles in America’s true forgotten war. The trucks rumble out of a bare-bones base in the seeming middle of nowhere, heading to a small village named Hemzebeg on what the military refers to as a “presence patrol.” Several weeks earlier, an apocryphal meme claiming President Joe Biden had “invaded” Syria proliferated across right-wing social media channels. In reality, U.S. forces here are carrying out a mission inherited across three administrations that, at least for now, seems poised to continue in perpetuity. But the popularity of the online conspiracy made clear that for some Americans, the roughly 900 troops former President Donald Trump bequeathed Biden are lost in the backlands of a frozen conflict, out of sight and out of mind. American special operations forces here are prosecuting the fight against what’s left of ISIS. But they are supported by conventional troops like those in Louisiana’s 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, whose patrols are keeping the roads safe and clear. The last unit to rotate through here regularly passed Russian patrols. On one occasion, the Russian convoy ran the Americans off of the road. But officials say that kind of interaction has dropped off steeply in recent months. Col. Scott Desormeaux, who leads the 256th, said he has seen “a small uptick in the amount of IEDs” — evidence of ISIS — but for the most part, this part of Syria is as sleepy as it comes in the middle of a civil war and a low-level terrorist insurgency.

Senior U.S. military officials describe what’s left of ISIS as a low-level insurgency that has more in common with a criminal gang than the transnational terrorist group that once controlled territory the size of Britain. But that doesn’t necessarily mean U.S. troops are coming home any time soon. Lt. Gen. Paul Calvert, who commands the U.S.-led counter-ISIS mission in Iraq and Syria, said the group is still able to establish training camps and other infrastructure inside the Badia Desert, where the United States doesn’t operate, and is still capable of carrying out the occasional high-profile attack. But the dizzying nature of the broader Syria problem combined with the muddled messaging surrounding Trump’s controversial, and ultimately failed, efforts to extricate U.S. forces has made a clean U.S. counterterrorism mission next to impossible. “The level of complexity in Syria is immense, and is probably one of the most complex environments I have seen in the 33 years that I've been serving,” Calvert said. In the village of Hemzebeg, the Louisiana 256th are treated warmly. 1st Lt. Samantha Stone meets with a handful of village elders while her troops hand out candy and kick around soccer balls with a herd of grinning kids. She asks them if they have any security concerns. Have you seen any ISIS here? Do you feel safe with us here? We feel safe with you here, she is told through a translator. But we don’t know if you’re staying here or if you’re just visiting or if you’re going to come back again.


Derik, Syria lies in a jutting plain in far eastern Syria, with Turkey to its north and Iraq to the south. The US mission here is ill-defined. Trump said it was to guard the oil.

Locals say the US sends convoy's of tanker trucks across the border at the illegal Al-Walid crossing and into Iraq where the oil is sold and the proceeds are used to support the SDS (Syrian Kurds).

No word yet from the Biden administration on what their Syrian plans may be.
 
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