Obama plans 250 more U.S. troops for Syria, boosting force to 300
President Barack Obama will announce on April 24 he plans to send as many as 250 additional U.S. troops to Syria, a sharp increase in the American presence working with local Syrian forces fighting Islamic State militants, U.S. officials said.
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Obama will explain his decision in a speech at 11:25 a.m. (0925 GMT) in Hanover, where he discussed the Syria crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on April 24. They will meet with other major European leaders after his remarks.
Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, controls the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria and is proving a potent threat abroad, claiming credit for major attacks in Paris in November and Brussels in March.
While Obama has resisted putting U.S. troops into Syria, where a five-year civil war has killed at least 250,000 people, he sent 50 U.S. special operations forces to Syria last year in what U.S. officials described as a "counterterrorism" mission rather than an effort to tip the scales in the war.
His decision to boost those numbers was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on April 24 and confirmed an April 1 Reuters report that the Obama administration was considering a significant increase in U.S. forces.
"The president has authorized a series of steps to increase support for our partners in the region, including Iraqi security forces as well as local Syrian forces who are taking the fight to ISIL," said a second Obama administration official.
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 or add troops to help with conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
The president is ending a six-day international trip that began in Riyadh, where he held talks with Gulf Arab monarchs concerned that Washington's commitment to the Middle East had diminished.
After that meeting, Obama sidestepped a question about whether he would add special forces in Syria, saying: "None of the options are good" if political talks fail to end the civil war there.
