Trump: US troops leaving Syria will ‘remain in region’ to prevent IS revival

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A US military vehicle patrols a road near the town of Tal Baydar in the countryside of Syria’s northeastern Hasakeh province on October 12, 2019. – Kurdish forces in northeast Syria Saturday battled a Turkish push along the country’s northern border as Ankara’s offensive went into its fourth day, following a night of steady advances. Turkey is targeting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a key US ally in the five-year battle to crush the Islamic State group. The SDF lost 11,000 fighters in the US-led campaign. (Photo by Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP)

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump said Monday that US troops withdrawing from Syria would remain in the region to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group.

“United States troops coming out of Syria will now redeploy and remain in the region to monitor the situation and prevent a repeat of 2014, when the neglected threat of ISIS raged across Syria and Iraq,” Trump said in a statement, using an acronym for the jihadist group.

Trump has given orders to pull all US troops from northern Syria — about 1,000 soldiers — as Turkey presses a deadly assault against Kurdish forces there.

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