©
REUTERS / Rodi Said MIDDLE
EAST 09:02
16.04.2018(updated 09:13 16.04.2018)
Despite
President Donald Trump’s earlier promise to leave Syria in the immediate
future, the United States has set up a military facility in Eastern Deir
ez-Zor, Fars news agency reported, citing the Arabic-language Orient news
website.
According
to the media outlet, the new US military base is located in al-Tanak
oilfield, which is controlled by the Kurdish militia, and American troops
have dispatched more equipment to the Syrian army’s defense lines –
from the town of Khasham in southeastern Deir ez-Zor to the
city of Hosseinieh, northeast of the region.
Earlier
in the day, the White House reiterated President Trump’s resolve
to withdraw US forces from Syria as soon as possible
following French President Emmanuel Macron’s remark about convincing
his American counterpart to maintain a US presence in the war-torn
country for a long time.
“The
US mission has not change – the president has been clear he wants US forces
to come home as quickly as possible. We are determined
to completely crush [Daesh] and create the conditions that will prevent
its return. In addition we expect our regional allies and partners to take
greater responsibility both militarily and financially for securing the
region,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
On
April 14, the United States, the UK and France carried out coordinated airstrikes against Syria
in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack by the
government of Bashar al-Assad in the city of Douma
in Eastern Ghouta. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the
three countries fired over 100 missiles, most of which were
intercepted by the Syrian Air Defenses. Damascus dismissed the attack
as a “brutal, barbaric aggression,” highlighting that the country’s
determination to “fight and crush terrorism in every inch” would only
increase after the trilateral strikes.
Last
month, President Trump announced plans to pull US troops out of
Syria “very soon” to “let the other people take care of it.”
Since
2014, the US-led international coalition has been conducting airstrikes
against what it called Daesh targets in Syria without a UN
mandate or Damascus’s consent. The Assad government has consistently denounced
the US military presence in the country as a “violation” of national
sovereignty.
©
AFP 2018 / OMAR HAJ KADOUR
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