Trump Reportedly Tells Erdogan US Will Cease Arming Syrian Kurds

Just after Putin hosted trilateral talks on Syria and the Middle East in Sochi involving Russia, Iran, and Turkey, President Trump spent part of his Friday after Thanksgiving on the phone with Turkey"s Erdogan. While the two discussed Syria and other regional issues, it appears they broached the delicate and contentious topic of US support to Syrian Kurdish fighters (namely, the Kurdish YPG, which forms the core of the Syrian Democratic Forces). The call came amidst a flurry of diplomatic activity over the Middle East driven by the Kremlin, and follows a lengthy Trump-Putin phone call on Tuesday.

Members of the Kurdish YPG, Mint Press

Though the details of the call are still unclear, Trump outlined what was to be generally discussed in a tweet, and said this morning, "Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East. I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!"

Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East. I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 24, 2017

Though not verified by the US side, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Trump told Erdogan during Friday"s call that the US will cease supplying weapons to the Syrian Kurdish fighters, according to the AP. Turkey has long considered Syrian Kurdish militant groups to be terrorists, and Erdogan reportedly insisted at the Sochi summit that Syrian Kurds be excluded from all negotiations over the future of Syria on the grounds that they have links to the PKK. However, it is unlikely that a lasting political settlement for Syria can be negotiated and successfully held without Syrian Kurdish input.

But should Turkey"s current claims that Trump vowed to end US military support to Syrian Kurds be confirmed, it would be a major development impacting the lasting arrangement of Syria and the war"s outcome. "Mr. Trump clearly stated that he had given clear instructions and that the YPG won"t be given arms and that this nonsense should have ended a long time ago,” Cavusoglu said at a news conference shortly after the call. And Erdogan presented an upbeat assessment of the call, tweeting shortly after: “I had a fruitful phone conversation with the U.S. President Donald Trump today."

Meanwhile Trump"s reference to $6 trillion appears to be related to a Nov. 8 Wall Street Journal story on a new study from the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, which calculates that the cost to US taxpayers for American troop deployment and wars in the broader Middle East - including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria - is about $5.6 trillion. Could a major pull-out and disengagement from Syria and other parts of the region be on the table (consistent with Trump"s "America first" non-interventionist campaign promises)?

We previously explained that that US strategy and support to the Kurds was predicated on the Pentagon forcing itself into a place of affecting the Syrian war"s outcome and final apportionment of power: the best case scenario for American power and planners in the region being permanent US bases under a Syrian Kurdish federated zone with favored access to Syrian oil doled out by Kurdish partners.

But it appears the Kurds may already be cutting separate deals and are in secret talks with Syria and Russia, which means a US exit from Syria could be forced sooner rather than later. According to University of Oklahoma Middle East expert Joshua Landis, the Kurds and the Syrian government are now sharing oil revenues from disputed oil fields controlled by Kurdish groups in some parts of Syria"s east.

Landis confirmed last week that "the Syrian gov, Syrian Kurds, and Arab tribes share oil revenues already. SAG gets 65% of revenues in Rmeilan field. PYD gets 20% (powerful Kurdish confederation in Syria"s north: the Democratic Union Party). Arab forces get 15%." Landis also posted the question, "is this the model for a future deal between Kurds, Arabs, and the Syrian Government in northern Syria?"

Should the White House confirm a commitment of US disengagement from the SDF with a concrete timeline, it would represent a monumental shift in policy, and would further ensure that Russia remains in the driver"s seat concerning the future of Syria and the Levant.

Why Are Washington's Clients Getting Cozy With Moscow?

Submitted by Nauman Sadiq,

Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO, has been cooperating with Russia in Syria against Washington’s interests since last year and has recently placed an order for the Russian-made S-400 missile system.

Similarly, the Saudi King Salman, who is on a landmark state visit to Moscow, has signed several cooperation agreements with Kremlin and has also expressed his willingness to buy S-400 missile system.

Another traditional ally of Washington in the region, Pakistan, has agreed to build a 600 mega-watt power project with Moscow’s assistance, has bought Russian helicopters and defense equipment and has held joint military exercises with Kremlin.

All three countries have been steadfast US allies since the times of the Cold War, or rather, to put it bluntly, the political establishments of these countries have acted as virtual proxies of Washington in the region and had played an important role in the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991.

In order to understand the significance of relationship between Washington and Ankara, which is a NATO member, bear in mind that the United States has been conducting air strikes against targets in Syria from the Incirlik airbase and around fifty American B-61 hydrogen bombs have also been deployed there, whose safety became a matter of real concern during the failed July 2016 coup plot against the Erdogan administration; when the commander of the Incirlik airbase, General Bekir Ercan Van, along with nine other officers were arrested for supporting the coup; movement in and out of the base was denied, power supply was cut off and the security threat level was raised to the highest state of alert, according to a report by Eric Schlosser for the New Yorker.

Similarly, in order to grasp the nature of principal-agent relationship between the United States on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on the other, keep in mind that Washington used Gulf’s petro-dollars and Islamabad’s intelligence agencies to nurture jihadists against the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.

It is an irrefutable fact that the United States sponsors militants, but only for a limited period of time in order to achieve certain policy objectives. For instance: the United States nurtured the Afghan jihadists during the Cold War against the former Soviet Union from 1979 to 1988, but after the signing of the Geneva Accords and consequent withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the United States withdrew its support to the Afghan jihadists.

Similarly, the United States lent its support to the militants during the Libyan and Syrian civil wars, but after achieving the policy objectives of toppling the Arab nationalist Gaddafi regime in Libya and weakening the anti-Israel Assad regime in Syria, the United States relinquished its blanket support to the militants and eventually declared a war against a faction of Sunni militants battling the Syrian government, the Islamic State, when the latter transgressed its mandate in Syria and dared to occupy Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014.

The United States regional allies in the Middle East, however, are not as subtle and experienced in Machiavellian geopolitics. Under the misconception that alliances and enmities in international politics are permanent, the Middle Eastern autocrats keep on pursuing the same belligerent policy indefinitely as laid down by the hawks in Washington for a brief period of time in order to achieve certain strategic objectives.

For example: the security establishment of Pakistan kept pursuing the policy of training and arming the Afghan and Kashmiri jihadists throughout the eighties and nineties and right up to September 2001, even after the United States withdrew its support to the jihadists’ cause in Afghanistan during the nineties after the collapse of its erstwhile archrival, the Soviet Union.

Similarly, the Muslim Brotherhood-led government of Turkey has made the same mistake of lending indiscriminate support to the Syrian militants even after the United States partial reversal of policy in Syria and the declaration of war against the Islamic State in August 2014 in order to placate the international public opinion when the graphic images and videos of Islamic State’s brutality surfaced on the social media.

Keeping up appearances in order to maintain the façade of justice and morality is indispensable in international politics and the Western powers strictly abide by this code of conduct. Their medieval client states in the Middle East, however, are not as experienced and they often keep on pursuing the same militarist policies of training and arming the militants against their regional rivals, which are untenable in the long run in a world where pacifism has generally been accepted as one of the fundamental axioms of the modern worldview.

Regarding the recent cooperation between Moscow and Ankara in the Syrian civil war, although the proximate cause of this détente seems to be the attempted coup plot against the Erdogan administration in July last year by the supporters of the US-based preacher, Fethullah Gulen, but this surprising development also sheds light on the deeper divisions between the United States and Turkey over their respective Syria policy.

After the United States reversal of “regime change” policy in Syria in August 2014 when the Islamic State overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014 and threatened the capital of another steadfast American ally, Masoud Barzani’s Erbil in the oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan, Washington has made the Kurds the centerpiece of its policy in Syria and Iraq.

Bear in mind that the conflict in Syria and Iraq is actually a three-way conflict between the Sunni Arabs, the Shi’a Arabs and the Sunni Kurds. Although after the declaration of war against a faction of Sunni Arab militants, the Islamic State, Washington has also lent its support to the Shi’a-led government in Iraq, but the Shi’a Arabs of Iraq are not the trustworthy allies of the United States because they are under the influence of Iran.

Therefore, Washington was left with no other choice than to make the Kurds the centerpiece of its policy in Syria and Iraq after a group of Sunni Arab jihadists transgressed its mandate in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014 from where the United States had withdrawn its troops only a couple of years ago in December 2011.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which are on the verge of liberating the Islamic State’s de facto capital, Raqqa, and are currently battling the jihadist group in a small pocket of the city between the stadium and a hospital, are nothing more than the Kurdish militias with a symbolic presence of mercenary Arab tribesmen in order to make them appear more representative and inclusive in outlook.

As far as the regional parties to the Syrian civil war are concerned, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the rest of the Gulf Arab States may not have serious reservations against this close cooperation between the United States and the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, because the Gulf Arab States tend to look at the regional conflicts from the lens of the Iranian Shi’a threat.

Turkey, on the other hand, has been more wary of the separatist Kurdish tendencies in its southeast than the Iranian Shi’a threat, and particularly now after the Kurds have held a referendum for independence in Iraq despite the international pressure against such an ill-advised move.

Finally, any radical departure from the longstanding policy of providing unequivocal support to Washington’s policy in the region by the political establishment of Turkey since the times of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is highly unlikely. But after this perfidy by Washington of lending its support to the Kurds against the Turkish proxies in Syria, it is quite plausible that the Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Turkey might try to strike a balance in its relations with the Cold War-era rivals.

*  *  *

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

Russia Warns US In Unprecedented "Secret" Face-To-Face Meeting Over Syria, But What's The Endgame?

The moment the first Russian jet landed in Syria at the invitation of the Assad government in 2015, Putin placed himself in the driver"s seat concerning the international proxy war in the Levant. From a strategic standpoint the armed opposition stood no chance of ever tipping the scales against Damascus from that moment onward. And though US relations with Russia became more belligerent and tense partly as a result of that intervention, it meant that Russia would set the terms of how the war would ultimately wind down.

Russia"s diplomatic and strategic victory in the Middle East was made clear this week as news broke of "secret" and unprecedented US-Russia face to face talks on Syria. The Russians reportedly issued a stern warning to the US military, saying that it will respond in force should the Syrian Army or Russian assets come under fire by US proxies. 

The AP reports that senior military officials from both countries met in an undisclosed location "somewhere in the Middle East" in order to discuss spheres of operation in Syria and how to avoid the potential for a direct clash of forces. Tensions have escalated in the past two weeks as the Syrian Army in tandem with Russian special forces are now set to fully liberate Deir Ezzor city, while at the same time the US-backed SDF (the Arab-Kurdish coalition, "Syrian Democratic Forces") - advised by American special forces - is advancing on the other side of the Euphrates. As we"ve explained before, the US is not fundamentally motivated in its "race for Deir Ezzor province" by defeat of ISIS terrorism, but in truth by control of the eastern province"s oil fields. Whatever oil fields the SDF can gain control of in the wake of Islamic State"s retreat will then used as powerful bargaining leverage in negotiating a post-ISIS Syria. The Kurdish and Arab coalition just this week captured Tabiyeh and al-Isba oil and gas fields northeast of Deir Ezzor city.

The race is underway for Syria"s most oil rich province. Syrian War Report (9/22/17) courtesy of  SouthFront.

At various times the Syrian-Russian side has come under mortar fire from SDF positions, even as Russia and the US are theoretically said to coordinate through a special military hotline. The SDF for its part claims it too has come under attack from the Syrian Army. The most significant event occurred just over a year ago when the US coalition launched a massive air attack on Syrian government troops in Deir Ezzor near the city"s military airport at the very moment they were fighting ISIS. The US characterized it as a case of mistaken identity while Syria accused the US coalition of directly aiding ISIS by the attack. The end result was about 100 Syrian soldiers dead and over a hundred more wounded while ISIS terrorists were able to advance and entrench their positions. 

Though US officials disclosed few elements of this week"s unusual meeting, the US side did confirm Russia"s threat of returning fire should Syrian soldiers come under attack. US coalition spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon confirmed that, “They had a face-to-face discussion, laid down maps and graphics.” But the Russians publicly delivered further details outlining its message to the US military. Russian Major-General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement,“A representative of the U.S. military command in Al Udeid (the U.S. operations center in Qatar) was told in no uncertain terms that any attempts to open fire from areas where SDF fighters are located would be quickly shut down.” He added that, “Fire points in those areas will be immediately suppressed with all military means.” Russia has further openly accused the US of violating previously agreed to "de-escalation" zones in Idlib (as part of Astana talks) using al-Qaeda proxies to engaged the Syrian Army in Idlib.

The US coalition hinted in its statements that future military-to-military talks could continue regarding coordination in Syria. Though Russian warnings sound alarmist, and though the situation is increasingly very dangerous for the prospect of escalation, the US side appears to be in a vulnerable enough position to listen. The fact that the meeting occurred in the first place and was publicly acknowledged by the Pentagon is hugely significant as a US ban on such direct military talks was put in place after the collapse in relations between the two nations following the outbreak of the Ukraine proxy war in 2014.

In reality some degree of US-Russian back channel communication and intelligence sharing probably existed long before the SDF made gains in Syria"s east - this according to Seymour Hersh"s 2016 investigation entitled, "Military to Military". Though (ironically) the CIA"s push for regime change against Damascus was still operational and presumably in full gear at that time, the Pentagon"s actions in Syria were always perhaps more humble regarding pursuit of regime change.

But what are current Pentagon plans for its SDF proxy?

It"s no secret that the core component force of the SDF - the Kurdish YPG - has at times loosely cooperated with the Syrian government when the situation pragmatically served both sides. At the same time Damascus has over the past few years recognized the Kurds as a militarily effective buffer against both ISIS and other powerful jihadist groups like al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham. While many Russian and pro-Damascus analysts have accused the SDF of being a mere pawn of US imperialism meant to permanently Balkanize the region, this is only partially true - the truth is likely more nuanced.

No doubt, the US is laying plenty of concrete in the form of forward operating bases across Kurdish held areas of northern and eastern Syria (currently about a dozen or more). And no doubt the US is enabling the illegal seizure of oil fields formerly held by the Islamic State, but Kurdish and US interests are not necessarily one and the same. The Kurds know that the best they can hope for in a post-war Syria is a federated system which allows Kurdish areas a high degree of autonomy. They also know, as decades of experience has taught them, that they will eventually be dumped by the US should the political cost of support grow too high or become untenable. For now the Kurds are gobbling up as many oil fields as possible before they are inevitably forced to cut deals with Damascus.

That is it. #Kurdistan referendum has gone ahead. Diaspora Kurds can begin early voting. First vote has been cast in China.

— Namo Abdulla (@namo_abdulla) September 22, 2017

Though the US endgame is the ultimate million dollar question in all of this, it appears at least for now that this endgame has something to do with the Pentagon forcing itself into a place of affecting the Syrian war"s outcome and final apportionment of power: the best case scenario being permanent US bases under a Syrian Kurdish federated zone with favored access to Syrian oil doled out by Kurdish partners. While this is the "realist" scenario, there"s of course always the question that an independent Iraqi Kurdistan could one day be realized out of the merging of Kurdish northern Iraq and Syria. But this would be nothing less than a geopolitical miracle. For now, early voting has begun in the Kurdish diaspora ahead of the planned for September 25th referendum on Kurdish independence, with the very first votes reportedly being cast in China.

Turkey Warns It's Ready For Military Intervention In Syria, Accuses US Of Creating A "Terrorist Army"

Speaking in an interview with France 24, in which Turkish president Recep Erdogan lashed out at Germany for not allowing him to address the Turkish community there and preventing him from bringing his bodyguards to the upcoming G20 meeting in Hamburg, Erdogan warned that Turkey is ready to intervene militarily in north Syria to repel Syrian Kurdish forces there, forces which recall are armed and supported by the US but are seen as a terrorist organisation by Turkey.

He also said that to avoid military intervention, a de-escalation zone could soon be established by Turkish and Russian troops in the region.

Separately, Turkey"s deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told Reuters on Wednesday that Turkish military preparations in northwest Syria are "legitimate measures against a threat from Kurdish forces in the Afrin region, and Turkey will retaliate against any hostile move." He added in an interview that "This is not a declaration of war. We are making preparations against potential threats" adding that "It"s ... a legitimate measure so that we can protect our independence. We cannot remain silent against those sending missiles from Afrin."

Kurtulmus was responding to the head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, who told Reuters that Turkish military deployments near Kurdish-held areas of northwestern Syria were a declaration of war which could trigger clashes within days.

"Their (YPG) primary goal is a threat to Turkey, and if Turkey sees a YPG movement in northern Syria that is a threat to it, it will retaliate in kind," Kurtulmus said.  "This isn"t a fantasy for us...it is an indispensible approach to protect Turkey"s border security."

The problem stems from Ankara"s consideration of the US-allied YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdish PKK group which has waged an insurgency in southeast Turkey since the 1980s. Turkey was angered by a U.S. decision to arm the YPG as it marched with it allies on Raqqa.

Some more details on the latest tactical positioning:

The YPG forms a major part of the U.S.-backed campaign to capture Islamic State"s stronghold of Raqqa. It also controls a pocket of territory in Afrin, about 200 km (125 miles) west of Raqqa. Tensions between Turkish forces and the YPG have been mounting in the Afrin region in recent weeks.

Turkey"s military, which launched an incursion last August into part of northern Syria which lies between Afrin and a larger Kurdish-controlled area further east, has said that it has returned fire against members of YPG militia near Afrin several times in the last few weeks.

Adding to the absurdity of the situation, last month the Turkish defence ministry said that the Pentagon had sought to give assurances that Washington would retrieve weapons provided to the YPG after Islamic State fighters were defeated. Clearly this was a ludicrous assertion and Turkey slammed it as such:

"There has never been an incident where a group in the Middle East has been armed, and they returned the weapons," Kurtulmus said. The United States "have formed more than a terrorist organisation there, they formed a small-scale army." 

It will hardly be the first time the US has formed

Turkish Lira Tumbles After Trump Approves Plan To Directly Arm Kurds

Update: Reuters confirms that it"s now official:

• WHITE HOUSE APPROVES SUPPLYING WEAPONS TO YPG FIGHTERS IN SYRIA - U.S. OFFICIAL TELL REUTERS


• WEAPONS TO HELP YPG FIGHTERS IN RAQQA OFFENSIVE, NO TIMELINE DISCLOSED FOR START OF SUPPLYING ARMS

* * *

Turkey"s "sultan for life" Erdogan will not be happy. NBC News is reporting that two US defense officials have confirmed President Trump has approved a plan to arm the Syrian Kurdish militia - an important U.S. ally in Syria in the fight against ISIS.

As AP confirms, US officials say Trump administration approves providing heavier weapons to Syria’s Kurds, despite "sharp objections" from Turkey.  As a reminder, YPG forces have ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist group by both the U.S. and Turkey, and yet which due to its location and ideological alignment, has long been an ally of the US. Two weeks ago, the US even went so far as to deploy troops along the Syria-US border after a Turkish airstrike killed several Kurdish fighters.

One of the officials told NBC News that this policy decision is very significant "because it supports the notion that the Syrian Democratic Force is the fighting force that will eventually go in to Raqqa" the erstwile capital of ISIS, which however may soon succumb to allied forces.

The move also reinforces the idea that the entire Syrian Democratic Force, Syrian Kurds (YPG) and the Syrian Arab Coalition, has the backing of the U.S.

The officials could not say what might flow in first or how it would get there, but among the expected options are:

• Breaching equipment — bulldozers, engineering equipment


• more effective infantry equipment: rifles, ammunition, armor, communication gear (radios)

The officials said the equipment could be delivered by any number of methods: ground convoys, C-130s, and air drops are all possible, depending on what the equipment is and the area. What"s unclear is whether the U.S. may provide bigger equipment.

The Turks will be notified about this soon and the officials expect a strong reaction from them. In March, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson traveled to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who sees the YPG as terrorists, about his opposition.

Even more shockingly, Reuters reported just minutes ago that U.S. President Donald Trump"s defense secretary emerged upbeat on Tuesday from talks with a Turkish official about the fight against Islamic State but did not disclose any progress toward settling a row over U.S. backing for Kurdish fighters in Syria.

Turkey, a NATO ally, is adamant that Washington should switch support for the planned assault on the Syrian city of Raqqa from the Kurdish YPG militia to Syrian rebels Turkey has trained and led against Islamic State for the past year.

For the U.S. administration, which is skeptical that the Turkish-backed force is large enough or sufficiently trained, the decision sets Trump"s wish for quick battlefield victories against the need to maintain its strategic alliance with Turkey.

"Our intent is to work with the Turks, alongside one another, to take Raqqa down, and we"re going to sort it out and we"ll figure out how we"re going to do it," Mattis told a news conference, after defense talks with members of the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State.

Pressed about the matter, Mattis said he did not want to disclose U.S. battlefield plans but suggested confidence that Washington and Ankara would get past the impasse.

"But we will work it out ... War sometimes doesn"t give you all good options. That"s the nature of war. It"s not a good situation," he said.

Well now we have the answer.

USDTRY has shot up from the 3.59 area towards 3.6200 (*lira weaker against the USD).

As Citi notes, while this is an arms, rather than military intervention plan, the decision is likely to upset the Turkish government. Note this comes amid broad reports of Trump"s new international plans. The Washington Post reported overnight that Trump is weighing a plan to send as many as 5k to Afghanistan following continued pushes from US General John Nicholson, who is the top commander in Afghanistan. Earlier today, he also formally extended the national emergency declaration in Syria.

The next question is - will this cause Erdogan to seek retaliation against Washington"s vassal states in Europe? Or run to Putin? (who also supports the Kurds if only on paper)

Video Emerges Of U.S. Marines Rolling Into Syria For Raqqa Offensive

Yesterday we noted that the Trump administration was mulling over sending 100s of U.S. Marines to Raqqa to establish an outpost from which they could fire artillery at IS positions to support U.S. special forces and Kurdish fighters already on the ground.  Now, just one day later, video has emerged of dozens of heavily armored vehicles flying U.S. flags moving through desolate Syrian villages on their way to do just that.

The vehicles captured amid the maneuvers are a part of an amphibious task force of the 11th US Marine Expeditionary Unit that recently arrived in Syria to assist the Kurdish-led SDF and Syrian Arab Coalition as they are preparing for an operation to recapture the Islamic State’s stronghold of Raqqa.

Deployment of the approximately 400 U.S. Marines was confirmed by US officials earlier today after reports of their ground presence surfaced yesterday. While the unit will be playing a crucial role in providing support for rebels in the coming offensive, in particular in form of artillery fire from M777 Howitzers capable of striking targets at a range of up to 20 miles, they will not engage in frontline combat and are supposedly only in Syria “for a temporary period.”

Per RT, US Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, spokesman for the US-led coalition, was optimistic about the timing of the operation, as he stated that the effort by the forces battling ISIS in the area, to encircle the city, has been “going very, very well.”

Under former President Barack Obama, US special operations forces were deployed to recruit, train and advise the SDF"s Arab and Kurdish fighters. However, their numbers were limited to 500.

The Marines" deployment is considered temporary, so it is not affected by the cap. The western alliance is expected to launch an assault on Raqqa in the coming weeks, which virtually assures that hundreds more will be shipped in shortly.

A spokesman for the US-led multinational coalition against IS, Colonel John Dorrian, told Reuters news agency on Thursday that the dozens of Rangers who recently arrived on the outskirts of Manbij, about 110km (68 miles) from Raqqa, were also there "for a temporary period".

Additionally, over the weekend, a separate force of elite US army Rangers was also deployed near a town north-west of Raqqa in heavily armoured vehicles, in an attempt to end clashes between SDF fighters and a Turkish-backed rebel force. Pentagon officials had earlier said the Rangers were taking part in a "reassure and deter" mission following clashes between Turkish-backed Arab rebels and local fighters from the Manbij Military Council, which was set up by the SDF when it captured the town from IS last year.

Last week, after Turkey"s president said the rebels aimed to capture Manbij, the council said it had agreed a deal with Russia to hand a string of villages on the frontline over to Syrian government forces in order to protect them. Turkey considers the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia, which dominates the SDF, an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which operates inside Turkey.

Is this a US escalation?

The short answer: yes; the official one: "it is not yet clear", but the deployment comes as President Donald Trump considers a new plan to defeat IS that was submitted by the Pentagon late last month. Reports say the review may lead to an increase in the number of US troops in Syria, but not a dramatic shift in strategy.

The Associated Press news agency reports that Mr Trump wants to give the Pentagon greater flexibility to make routine combat decisions in the fight against IS. Commanders on the ground were frustrated by what they considered micromanagement by the Obama administration, it adds. As reported last night, the US is also said to be preparing to send up to 1,000 troops to Kuwait to serve as a reserve force that can deployed to fight IS in Syria and Iraq if necessary.

In total, about 6,000 US troops are in the countries, but largely in advisory roles.

Why Is Raqqa so important?

As the WSJ writes overnight, the ongoing "three-way contest" for Raqqa will shape the mideast. Here are some details:

As the Syrian conflict enters its sixth year, the outcome of the scramble for Islamic State’s de facto capital will shape the balance of power in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.

With the self-styled caliphate rapidly shrinking in Iraq after the loss of much of Mosul, the fall of Raqqa and Islamic State’s remaining territories in Syria has become just a matter of time. The contest over who gets these spoils, however, threatens to unleash a new spiral of violence that could draw regional and global powers deeper into the conflict.

The three forces aiming for Raqqa—Sunni Arab rebels, the Syrian regime and Kurdish-led militias—all view control over that area as giving them crucial leverage in any political settlement of the war.

The complicated dynamic is further muddled by the strategic calculations of their main sponsors, whose own interests extend far beyond the power struggle inside Syria.

Turkey, the main supporter of the rebel Free Syrian Army and allied Sunni Arab militias, is most interested in weakening the main Syrian Kurdish political faction, which is affiliated with the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers’ Party. The PKK is waging a violent campaign inside Turkey and is considered a terrorist group by Washington and Ankara alike.

For the Syrian regime’s main backer Russia, which has developed ties with the Syrian Kurds and, of late, with some Sunni Arab rebels, the main goal is to capitalize on its costly investment in Syria and to cement the achievements of its military campaign through a political deal.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, is still reviewing its Syria policy. Its actions, for now, remain driven almost exclusively by the military priorities in the battle against Islamic State, with limited attention to America’s other interests and alliances in the region.

More here.