• Every Russian troop in Syria voted for Vladimir Putin in Sunday's presidential election.
• All 2,954 ballots were for Putin, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
• This could confirm how many Russian troops are in Syria.

Every Russian troop in Syria voted for Vladimir Putin in Sunday's presidential election, NPR's Moscow Correspondent, Lucian Kim, tweeted on Monday, citing the Russia Defense Ministry. 

"Russian MoD: All Russian military personnel in Syria have voted, and all 2,954 ballots are for Putin," Kim tweeted. 

"(Well, at least we know the exact troop numbers now.)"

While this figure could easily be true, it's difficult to verify, given Russia's continual game of misinformation. It's also unclear if that figure included Russian mercenaries who operate in the country, namely to guard oil fields. 

Putin won on Sunday with nearly 77% of the vote, but the election has been criticized by international election monitors as "overly controlled" and lacking "genuine competition,"according to CNN. 

Russia and the Syrian regime also continue to conduct airstrikes in Eastern Ghouta, where at least 30 were killed on Sunday alone from regime bombing runs.

SEE ALSO: 15 years ago, the US invaded Iraq — here's how it changed the Middle East country

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The Pentagon Monday leveled sharp criticism at a military offensive on northern Syria, which has displaced tens of thousands of Kurds, killed hundreds of civilians and is creating a humanitarian crisis, all while carefully not mentioning the country carrying out the offensive, Turkey.

“Civilian casualties, not getting humanitarian assistance, a growing humanitarian crisis. It’s gotta be stopped. It’s gotta be averted,” Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.

Pressed by a reporter from the Turkish Anadolu News Service about who specifically was to blame for the worsening situation in the North, Manning refused to name Turkey, a NATO ally, and simply called on all sides to stop.

“More than who to blame, is the need to stop it, and the need to ensure that all parties focus on the reason why they are there,” which Manning said is to defeat Islamic State.

The US has complained to Turkey that its two-months-old offensive, which captured the city of Afrin over the weekend, is siphoning off Kurdish fighters from the fight against ISIS in the east to battle Turkish and Syrian rebel troops in the west.

“We are very concerned about the effect that fighting there has had on our defeat ISIS efforts, and would like to see an end to the hostilities before ISIS has an opportunity to regroup in eastern Syria,” Manning said. “We cannot allow ISIS to regain momentum at this critical point.”

The US has relied on heavy bombing of ISIS positions in the Middle Euphrates River Valley to keep the group from retaking any ground while the remaining Syrian fighters there have been relegated to reinforcing their defensive positions.

The Pentagon says the US remains in talks with Turkey to try to find a solution that would address what it calls Turkey’s “legitimate security” concerns along its southern border, but would also halt the offensive that has effectively stalled the final push by US-backed Kurdish and Arab forces to finish off ISIS.

“Further operations beyond the border regions will draw in more forces and further exacerbate an already deteriorating humanitarian situation,” Manning said. “We are concerned about reports indicating civilians are unable to access potable water. Clean water is vital to survival. We encourage all parties to allow the free flow of these resources and much-needed humanitarian aid throughout Syria.”

The UN office for humanitarian affairs said last week that after the Turkish army took control of a dam and a water pumping station northeast of Afrin, water was cut off to local residents, who have since relied on untreated water from wherever they can get it.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to clear a wide swath of northern Syria of any elements of the Kurdish YPG militia, who he considers terrorists, and to send his forces east toward Manbij, where a small number of US troops is garrisoned along with US-backed Kurdish forces.

The US has not said if the US troops would protect their Kurdish partners in Manbij should Turkish forces tried to enter the city, but the Pentagon notes that American troops always have the right to self-defense.

The State Department is engaged with Turkey to try to resolve “a number of shared security issues, one of which is Manbij,” a Pentagon spokesman said.

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• Israel admitted for the first time that it bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, and said it's a warning to Iran that it will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
  
• The Israeli military released previously classified cockpit footage, photographs and intelligence documents about its Sept. 6, 2007, air strike on the Al-Kubar facility near Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria.
• Israel said the reactor was being built with help from North Korea, and was months away from activation, but Reuters has not verified the material.

Israel for the first time admitted that it bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 and said on Wednesday the strike should be a warning to Iran that it would not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

The Israeli military released previously classified cockpit footage, photographs and intelligence documents about its Sept. 6, 2007, air strike on the Al-Kubar facility near Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria.

It said the reactor was being built with help from North Korea and the facility had been months away from activation. Reuters has been unable to immediately verify the Israeli material.

Israel’s decision to go public comes after repeated calls in recent months by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the United States and international community to take tougher action on Iran, Syria’s ally.

Israel's intelligence minister, Israel Katz, said on Twitter: "The (2007) operation and its success made clear that Israel will never allow nuclear weaponry to be in the hands of those who threaten its existence - Syria then, and Iran today."

The Israeli military described in detail events leading up to the night of Sept 5-6, 2007, in which, it said, eight warplanes, F-16s and F-15s, carried out the mission after taking off from the Ramon and Hatzerim air bases and flying to Deir al-Zor region, 450 km northwest of Damascus. Eighteen tonnes of munitions were dropped on the site, it said.

In his 2010 memoir "Decision Points," former U.S. President George W. Bush disclosed that he discussed intelligence about the Syrian facility with then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before it was destroyed but did not give him the green light for the raid.

James Jeffrey, Bush's deputy national security adviser, said on Wednesday the former U.S. president had been "absolutely supportive" of Israel.

"(He) made it clear that we were very happy that events had eliminated this threat and that if there were any threats to Israel that would emerge from this situation, the United States would stand with Israel, period," Jeffrey told Israel's Army Radio.

In 2008 the United States presented what it described as intelligence showing that North Korea had helped Syria with "covert nuclear activities." At the time Syria dismissed the accusations as part of a campaign to discredit the Damascus government.

"The Syrian government regrets the campaign of lies and falsification by the U.S. administration against Syria, including allegations of nuclear activity," said a government statement issued on the Syrian state news agency.

Iran, which says its nuclear program has only peaceful aims, signed a 2015 deal under which it accepted curbs on its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. U.S. President Donald Trump and Netanyahu have both been critical of the deal.

"TOP SECRET"

The Israeli military declassified internal "top secret" intelligence reports, in Hebrew, some of them partly redacted.

One, dated March 30, 2007, said: "Syria has set up, within its territory, a nuclear reactor for the production of plutonium, through North Korea, which according to an (initial) worst-case assessment is liable to be activated in approximately another year. To our assessment [REDACTED] secretive and orderly [REDACTED] for achieving a nuclear weapon."

Israeli intelligence predicted that the suspected reactor "would turn operational by the end of 2007".

The mission to destroy the facility started at 10.30 p.m. on Sept. 5 and ended with the return of the warplanes at 2.30 a.m. the next day, the Israeli military said.

The event was first made public by Syria, which, as reported by Reuters at the time, said in the early hours of Sept. 6 that Syrian air defenses had repelled an incursion by Israeli warplanes.

Syria, a signatory of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has always denied that the site was a reactor or that Damascus engaged in nuclear cooperation with North Korea.

The Israeli military's announcement on Wednesday noted that the area in question, around Deir al-Zor, was captured by Islamic State after the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011.

Had there been an active reactor there, the Israeli military said, it would have had "severe strategic implications on the entire Middle East as well as Israel and Syria".

The Israeli release contains a black-and-white aerial photograph captioned "before the attack" and showing a box-like structure amid desert dunes with smaller outlying buildings.

A series of black-and-white videos, taken above the target, shows the structure in cross-hairs. A male voice is heard counting down three seconds, a cloud of black smoke rises from the structure as it explodes. Other footage appears to show the aftermath - a smoldering hole in the ground.

Wednesday's release came ahead of the publication of a memoir by Olmert containing passages about the 2007 strike.

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• Israel's military admitted on Tuesday that its airstrikes had taken out a would-be nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007.
• If Syria had kept its nuclear program in place, it's very possible it could have lost its nuclear weapons to ISIS or other rebel groups when the country erupted into civil war.
• A nuclear-capable ISIS would have had more leverage, and could possibly force concessions from its opponents or prompt other nuclear states to strike first.

Israel's military admitted on Tuesday what intelligence communities around the world had long known — that Israeli airstrikes had taken out a would-be nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007.

In reporting the strike, Israel said it had done so in part to warn its adversaries in the region, like Iran. But surely Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and other countries with spy services already knew the action Israel had taken. 

It's unlikely Iran or Syria needed a current reminder that Israel would fight in the skies over Syria to protect its interests after a massive Israeli air offensive downed an Iranian drone and reportedly took out half of Syria's air defenses in February.

But one element of Israel's 2007 strike on a nuclear reactor near Deir Ezzor that bears repeating and reexamination is the fact that the terror group ISIS held control of that area for three full years.

If Syria had nukes, then ISIS might have too

"Look at nukes as an insurance policy — at the end of the day, if you've got a nuke, it's an umbrella for all of the other activity that could potentially spark conflict with your enemies," Jonathan Schanzer, a Syria expert and the senior vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider. "If your enemies want to respond to you, they're going to feel inhibited."

This may have been Syria's calculus in 2007 when it set about a clandestine nuclear weapons program, reportedly with the help of embedded North Koreans. 

But in 2011, a popular, pro-democratic uprising in Syria sparked what would become a civil war that has dragged on to this day. During the conflict, Syrian President Bashar Assad has lost control of the majority of his country, with some parts under the control of rebel forces, some parts under the control of Kurdish forces, and from 2014 to 2017, much of the country under ISIS' control.

ISIS held Deir Ezzor and the surrounding regions for three solid years, during which time they looted and pillaged whatever resources were available and ready for sale, including oil from the country's rich oilfields. 

If Israel had not taken out the reactor in 2007, it's entirely possible ISIS could have taken custody of it. With access to radioactive materials, it's possible ISIS could have cooked up a dirty bomb for use in terrorism, or even detonated a full on nuclear device.

It's reasonable to expect that a nuclear-capable ISIS would have more leverage, and could possibly force concessions from its opponents or prompt other nuclear states to strike first.

Instability makes Middle Eastern nuclear programs extra dangerous

"The Middle East is unstable," Schanzer said. "One never knows when the next popular uprising or the next moment of intense instability might hit."

Even states like Iran, where the current government has been in power since 1979, could fall prey to a popular uprising that could collapse the regime "overnight," according to Schanzer.

"Imagine if in Syria today we were trying to track loose nukes," Schanzer said. "Imagine if a country like Yemen had nuclear weapons."

While nuclear weapons may deter state actors from invading a country or pushing it too far, they do not protect against domestic upheaval, like the 2011 Syrian uprising that became overrun with Islamist hardliners like ISIS and Al Qaeda.

SEE ALSO: Syria's civil war began 7 years ago — look back at how it spawned ISIS, a refugee crisis, and a massive US strike

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NOW WATCH: Why Russia is so involved in the Syrian Civil War

• A US Navy Rear Adm. recently outlined how the US's air campaign over Syria has become incredibly complicated — and therefore very dangerous.
• US pilots are flying very closely to a number of other air forces that have different agendas.
• More than just fighting wars, the US has to interpret the other actors' intentions.
• Because of the close quarters and confusing politics, US pilots run the risk of making a massive mistake that could start a war with Russia, Iran, Turkey, or others in the region. 

A recent report from the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier stationed in the Persian Gulf and supporting the US-led fight against ISIS contained a startling realization — US pilots are fighting in an insanely complicated space that puts them in danger.

"When it first started, ISIS was just steamrolling across Iraq and Syria and there wasn't really much resistance going on … There weren't a whole lot of places you could go where there was no ISIS presence about three years ago," Lt. Joe Anderson, an F/A-18F pilot aboard the Roosevelt, told the US Naval Institute.

But in 2018, the US-led coalition against ISIS has all but crushed the terror army. Now the US troops in Syria, and their backups aboard the Roosevelt, have moved on to other objectives.

"Now where we're at, there's not as much going on … Mostly they’ve been whittled down to just isolated pockets within Iraq and Syria," Anderson said. 

As the fight against ISIS dwindles down, the US has turned its attention to denying Iran influence within Syria and a land bridge to arm Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, as well as denying Syrian President Bashar Assad access to the country's rich eastern oilfields. 

US Navy pilots now spend much of their time "doing on-call [close-air support] and doing more defending the US and coalition forces on the ground in the area, and specifically Syrian Defense Forces who are in the mix doing their thing," Anderson said.

That means the US is defending a group of Syrian rebels with embedded US ground troops in one of the most complex fights in history. The US supports the SDF and Kurdish forces in Syria's north, but Turkey, a NATO ally, launched a military campaign against the Kurds. The US's SDF allies opposes Syria's government, but Russia and Iran back them. 

US pilots fly the same skies as Iranian, Turkish, Syrian, and Russian aircraft, and they're only allies with the Turks. 

Crazy complicated skies put the US at risk

Anderson's commander, Rear Adm. Steve Koehler, told USNI that "the threat picture in Syria is just crazy."

"How many different countries can you cram in one different place, where they all have a different little bit of an agenda? And you put a tactical pilot up there and he or she has to employ ordnance or make defensive counter-air decisions with multiple people – Russians, Syrians, Turks, ISIS, United States," Koehler said. 

As a result of the multi-faceted geopolitical complexity, US pilots are now in much more danger than a regular combat mission, according to retired US Marine Corps Lt. Col. David Berke.

"Now the pilots in the airplanes are under stress and using ordnance now have to do interpretations of human behavior and derive the intention of a potential adversary, or at least someone who's not there for the same reasons," Berke told Business Insider. 

In normal situations, like over Iraq or Afghanistan, US pilots fly with coalition partners and against enemy aircraft, but the divergent agendas in Syria mean aircraft with potentially bad aircraft can square right up to the US without tripping any alarms.

Berke emphasized that the difference in each country's agenda made the coordination and combat fraught with difficulty.

If an armed Turkish jet was speeding towards Kurdish forces with US troops embedded, how should a US pilot respond? US pilots and air controllers train endlessly on how to fight, but drawing the line between what constitutes aggression, or self defense, is a different matter.

This could start a war

"If you misinterpret what someone does, you can create a massive problem, you can start a war," Berke said. "I can't think of a more complex place for there to be or a greater level of risk."

As a result, US pilots are somewhat bound to deescalation, and may be tolerating higher levels of aggression from adversaries or non-allies in the skies above Syria. No US pilot wants to make headlines for kicking off an international incident by downing a Russian jet, or failing to defend US forces in a very murky situation. 

"The less you know what's going on, the more likely you're going to make a bad decision that you're not aware," Berke said. "The fact that it hasn't escalated beyond what it is now is a testament to the professionalism of the US military, it could have gone sideways any number of times."

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John Bolton has a glaring record of extreme and bombastic views and behavior. First-hand recollections of that record include, for example, former State Department officer Greg Thielmann’s description of Bolton’s performance as one of the most enthusiastic promoters of the Iraq War.

The following passage from my 2011 book Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy describes how, even compared to other proponents of that disastrous expedition, Bolton was exceptionally heavy-handed in trying to crush opposing viewpoints and distort intelligence.

While reading it, think about how one of the most important functions of the job of national security advisor, to which Bolton has been appointed, is to ensure that the president receives all relevant options and insights and the best possible information before making policy decisions.

The most egregious recent instances of arm twisting arose in George W. Bush’s administration but did not involve Iraq. The twister was Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, who pressured intelligence officers to endorse his views of other rogue states, especially Syria and Cuba. Bolton wrote his own public statements on the issues and then tried to get intelligence officers to endorse them.

According to what later came to light when Bolton was nominated to become ambassador to the United Nations, the biggest altercation involved Bolton’s statements about Cuba’s allegedly pursuing a biological weapons program. When the relevant analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) refused to agree with Bolton’s language, the undersecretary summoned the analyst and scolded him in a red-faced, finger-waving rage.

The director of INR at the time, Carl Ford, told the congressional committee considering Bolton’s nomination that he had never before seen such abuse of a subordinate—and this comment came from someone who described himself as a conservative Republican who supported the Bush administration’s policies—an orientation I can verify, having testified alongside him in later appearances on Capitol Hill.

When Bolton’s angry tirade failed to get the INR analyst to cave, the undersecretary demanded that the analyst be removed. Ford refused. Bolton attempted similar pressure on the national intelligence officer for Latin America, who also inconveniently did not endorse Bolton’s views on Cuba.

Bolton came across the river one day to our National Intelligence Council offices and demanded to the council’s acting chairman that my Latin America colleague be removed. Again, the demand was refused—a further example of how such ham-fisted attempts at pressure seldom succeed.

There was even more to the intimidation than has yet been made public, but I leave it to those directly targeted to tell the fuller story when they are free to do so.

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two personnel with the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State were killed and five were wounded by an improvised explosive device in Syria, the coalition said on Friday.

The casualties appeared to be the first to be killed or wounded in an attack this year on the coalition.

About 10 have been killed in non-combat-related incidents since Jan. 1, including seven in a helicopter crash, according to coalition statements and military sources.

"Details pertaining to the incident are being withheld pending further investigation," the coalition said, adding that the explosion happened on Thursday at 2100 GMT. The wounded were evacuated for further treatment, according to the statement, which did not give the nationalities of the casualties.

Islamic State militants continue to carry out attacks including bombings, ambushes and assassinations in Syria and Iraq despite the collapse last year of the cross-border "caliphate" declared in 2014 by their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

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• A roadside bomb in northern Syria killed two coalition personnel.
• One of the service members was an American.
• Five others were wounded in the attack.

KOBANI, Syria (AP) — A roadside bomb in northern Syria killed two coalition personnel, including an American, and wounded five others in a rare attack since the U.S.-led coalition sent troops into the war-torn country, the U.S. military and a U.S. defense official said Friday.

The military did not say where the attack took place or give the nationalities of the other casualties but it came hours after a local Syrian official said that a roadside bomb exploded in the tense, mixed Arab-Kurdish town of Manbij that is not far from the border with Turkey.

Manbij is under threat of a Turkish military operation. Ankara says Syrian Kurdish militiamen it views as "terrorists" and an extension of Kurdish insurgents inside Turkey is in control of the town.

The U.S. military statement said the attack happened Thursday night and that the wounded were being evacuated for further medical treatment. The statement said details were being withheld pending further investigation.

A Department of Defense official in Washington said one of the two killed was an American service member and the other was of another nationality that the official would not specify.

No other information about the American was immediately available. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because details had not yet been publicly released.

Earlier on Friday, U.S. military spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon couldn't immediately say who was behind the attack.

"There is an investigation under way to identify who they could possibly be. We have our initial assessment and thoughts on that but we won't provide until the investigation is complete," he said.

Dillon declined to give the nationalities of the dead and wounded as well as the location of the attack until next of kin notification.

Dillon said the coalition has had fatalities in Syria before. "Perhaps by different means but there have been coalition deaths in Syria over the course of three years."

Mohammed Abu Adel, head of the Manbij Military Council, an Arab-Kurdish group in the town backed by the U.S., said the bomb went off hundreds of meters (yards) from a security headquarters that houses the council just before midnight on Thursday.

Earlier on Friday, Dillon said an incident involving coalition forces was reported in Manbij but said no more information was available.

The town has seen a number of small explosions, protests and an assassination attempt on a member of the Manbij military council in recent weeks. Local officials blame Turkey and other adversaries for seeking to sow chaos in the town that was controlled by Islamic State group militants until the summer of 2016.

The military council has since been in control and U.S. troops patrol the town and area with troops based nearby.

Meanwhile, near the capital Damascus, there were conflicting reports on whether a main rebel group will evacuate the largest and last rebel-held town in the area, known as eastern Ghouta.

Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military's General Staff said at a Friday briefing that the agreement envisages Army of Islam rebels and their families leaving the Syrian town of Douma, just outside of Damascus.

The announcement came after the Syrian government on Wednesday issued a three-day ultimatum to the Army of Islam group to leave Douma or face an all-out offensive.

Syrian state TV said an agreement is about to be reached for an Army of Islam evacuation but the group denied the reports.

Army of Islam military spokesman Hamza Bayraqdar told The Associated Press that the reports are false, adding that his group's stance is to reject displacement and demographic change in eastern Ghouta.

The Syrian government and the Russian military backing it have demanded that Army of Islam members leave the area for northern Syria, following other rebels who left eastern Ghouta.

Rudskoi said over 143,000 people, including 13,793 rebels and 23,544 members of their families have left eastern Ghouta. He also said some 40,000 residents have returned to their homes in eastern Ghouta as there has been no fighting over the last seven days.

____

Burns reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's unscripted remark this week about pulling out of Syria "very soon," while at odds with his own policy, was not a one-off: For weeks, top advisers have been fretting about an overly hasty withdrawal as the president has increasingly told them privately he wants out, US officials said.

Only two months ago, Trump's aides thought they'd persuaded him that the US needed to keep its presence in Syria open-ended — not only because the Islamic State group has yet to be entirely defeated, but also because the resulting power vacuum could be filled by other extremist groups or by Iran. Trump signed off on major speech in January in which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out the new strategy and declared "it is vital for the United States to remain engaged in Syria."

But by mid-February, Trump was telling his top aides in meetings that as soon as victory can be declared against IS, he wanted American troops out of Syria, said the officials. Alarm bells went off at the State Department and the Pentagon, where officials have been planning for a gradual, methodical shift from a military-led operation to a diplomatic mission to start rebuilding basic infrastructure like roads and sewers in the war-wracked country.

The officials weren't authorized to comment publicly and demanded anonymity.

Trump's first public suggestion he was itching to pull out came in a news conference with visiting Australian Prime Minister Alastair Campbell on February 23, when Trump said the US was in Syria to "get rid of ISIS and go home." On Thursday, in a domestic policy speech in Ohio, Trump went further.

"We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon — very soon, we're coming out," Trump said.

The public declaration caught US national security agencies off-guard and unsure whether Trump was formally announcing a new, unexpected change in policy. Inundated by inquiries from journalists and foreign officials, the Pentagon and State Department reached out to the White House's National Security Council for clarification.

The White House's ambiguous response, officials said: Trump's words speak for themselves.

"The mission of the Department of Defense to defeat ISIS has not changed," said Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman.

Still, without a clear directive from the president, planning has not started for a withdrawal from Syria, officials said, and Trump has not advocated a specific timetable.

For Trump, who campaigned on an "America First" mantra, Syria is just the latest foreign arena where his impulse has been to limit the US role. Like with NATO and the United Nations, Trump has called for other governments to step up and share more of the burden so that Washington doesn't foot the bill. His administration has been crisscrossing the globe seeking financial commitments from other countries to fund reconstruction in both Syria and Iraq, but with only limited success.

Yet it's unclear how Trump's impulse to pull out could be affected by recent staff shake-ups on his national security team. Tillerson and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, both advocates for keeping a US presence in Syria, were recently fired, creating questions about the longevity of the plan Tillerson announced in his Stanford University speech in January. But Trump also replaced McMaster with John Bolton, a vocal advocate for US intervention and aggressive use of the military overseas.

The abrupt change in the president's thinking has drawn concern both inside and outside the United States.

Other nations that make up the US-led coalition fighting IS fear that Trump's impulse to pull out hastily would allow the notoriously resourceful IS militants to regroup, several European diplomats said. That concern has been heightened by the fact that US-backed ground operations against remaining IS militants in Syria were put on hold earlier this month.

The ground operations had to be paused because Kurdish fighters who had been spearheading the campaign against IS shifted to a separate fight with Turkish forces, who began combat operations in the town of Afrin against Kurds who are considered by Ankara to be terrorists that threaten Turkey's security.

"This is a serious and growing concern," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said this month.

Beyond just defeating IS, there are other strategic US objectives that could be jeopardized by a hasty withdrawal, officials said, chiefly those related to Russia and Iran.

Israel, America's closest Mideast ally, and other regional nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are deeply concerned about the influence of Iran and its allies, including the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, inside Syria. The US military presence in Syria has been seen as a buffer against unchecked Iranian activity, and especially against Tehran's desire to establish a contiguous land route from Iran to the Mediterranean coast in Lebanon.

An American withdrawal would also likely cede Syria to Russia, which along with Iran has been propping up Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces and would surely fill the void left behind by the US. That prospect has alarmed countries like France, which has historic ties to the Levant.

In calling for a withdrawal "very soon," Trump may be overly optimistic in his assessment of how quickly the anti-IS campaign can be wrapped up, the officials said. Although the group has been driven from basically all of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and 95 percent of its former territory in Syria, the remaining five percent is becoming increasingly difficult to clear and could take many months, the officials said.

___

Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.

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NOW WATCH: Why Russia is so involved in the Syrian Civil War

• Sen. Lindsey Graham had some tough words for President Donald Trump on Russia, Syria, and North Korea on Sunday.
• He wondered why Trump has not been tougher on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• Amid talk that Trump might pull all US military support from Syria, Graham said leaving Syria would be "the single worst decision" he could make.
• He also called for a formal peace treaty between North and South Korea.

Sen. Lindsey Graham gave President Donald Trump some harsh pointers on his foreign policy approach on Sunday and offered a veiled attack on Trump's approach to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Graham wondered aloud on "Fox News Sunday" why Trump has allegedly not been very vocal about opposing Russia.

"The president for some reason has a hard time pushing back against Putin," Graham told Fox News host Chris Wallace.

"This is the '80s all over," he added. "If I were Trump I would look at the Reagan playbook."

Former President Ronald Reagan has been hailed for setting the groundwork for the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the eventual end of the Cold War.

Amid new tensions with Russia over its alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom last month, Trump's administration has taken strong action on the issue, but it took Trump personally over a week to comment on who the perpetrator might have been.

"It sounds to me like it would be Russia, based on all the evidence they have," Trump told reporters last month, according to CNN. "It sounds to me like they believe it was Russia and I would certainly take that finding as fact."

Trump added: "As soon as we get the facts straight, if we agree with them, we will condemn Russia or whoever it may be."

The Trump administration recently expelled 60 Russian diplomats and announced the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle over the poisoning. Russia then also expelled 60 US diplomats, part of a broader diplomatic rebuke that included the expulsion of a total of 150 western diplomats from its borders.

But Trump has also refused to implement sanctions against Russia that Congress had already voted into place, and has frequently stopped short of confronting Putin about Russia's interference in the 2016 US election. 

Trump said last year he believed Putin when he told him Russia did not interfere in the election, in contradiction to the findings of US intelligence agencies.

"He said he didn't meddle. He said he didn't meddle," Trump said in November. "I asked him again. You can only ask so many times. I just asked him again. He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did."

Trump also has a long history of praising the Russian leader.

Trump is in danger of making "the single worst decision" on Syria

After speaking about Russia, Graham turned to US policy in the Middle East and North Korea.

Reports this week have suggested Trump has been musing about pulling out of Syria unilaterally, which would be at odds with his administration's official policy.

"We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon — very soon, we're coming out," Trump said.

Graham said he vigorously opposed this idea, saying it would be "the single worst decision" he could make.

"When it comes to Syria, do not read the Obama playbook, one foot in and one foot out," Graham added.

Obama had been criticized for his supposedly uneven approach to the Syrian conflict, and for failing to play a more active role in preventing the war from spiraling out of control. Trump's policy in the country has been slightly more aggressive — while his predecessor said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons was a "red line" for the administration but did little to back up this notion, Trump last year ordered a military strike against a Syrian government air base after dozens were killed in a chemical attack. The move though was not without controversy, and allegedly broke international law.

The US has continued to support the Syrian Kurdish forces in northern Syria, who have recently come into conflict with Turkey, a strong US ally.

On North Korea, Graham said that negotiations should remain focused on denuclearization — but also on another, less talked-about goal.

"Here's the goal of the negotiations: to make sure that North Korean gives up its nuclear program," he said. "And maybe get a peace treaty with North Korea, South Korea, the United States, and China."

North Korea has technically been at war with the South since 1950, and only signed a ceasefire agreement in 1953 at the end of the Korean War.

A formal peace agreement would be a landmark in the history of North-South relations.

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• Master Sgt. Jonathan J. Dunbar and a British service member who were killed by an IED in Syria last week were on a mission to capture or kill an ISIS fighter. 
• Few details thus far have been released about the mission.
• Dunbar was heavily decorated, receiving three Bronze Stars, four Army Commendation Medals, and more. 

A US special operator who was killed in Syria recently was a member of the Army’s elite Delta Force and on a mission to kill or capture a member of the Islamic State terrorist group, CNN first reported on Monday.

Master Sgt. Jonathan J. Dunbar and a British service member were killed on March 30 by an improvised explosive device near Manbij, according to the Defense Department. A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment when Task & Purpose asked if Dunbar was a member of Delta Force.

Officially, he was assigned to Headquarters, U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Few details about the mission on which Dunbar and the British soldier were killed have been released so far.

“Coalition forces, in an advise, assist and accompany capacity with our partners, were conducting a mission to kill or capture a known ISIS member when they were struck by an improvised explosive device,” Pentagon spokesman Marine Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway said in an email. “This operation was part of the Coalition’s mission to defeat ISIS, and we remain focused on our mission.”

Dunbar’s military awards include three Bronze Stars, four Army Commendation Medals, six Army Achievement Medals, five Good Conduct Medals, the National Defense Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal with two Bronze Service Stars, the Iraq Campaign Medal with two Bronze Service Stars, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon with Numeral 3, the Army Service Ribbon, two Overseas Service Ribbons, the NATO Medal, the Ranger Tab, the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Expert Infantryman Badge, the Pathfinder Badge, the Military Freefall Jumpmaster Badge, and the Parachutist Badge.

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The B-1B Lancer is back in the Middle East for the first time in nearly two-and-a-half years to take over strike missions from B-52 Stratofortress bombers.

The non-nuclear bombers from Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, arrived at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, on March 31, according to social-media posts from Air Forces Central Command.

The Lancers will be primarily focused on Operation Inherent Resolve, the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and Operation Freedom Sentinel in Afghanistan, AfCent said. The command would not give details on how many bombers are involved or on the duration of the mission.

"Following two years supporting U.S. Pacific Command requirements, the B-1 returns to the U.S. Central Command [area of responsibility] where it will take over bomber duty from the venerable B-52 Stratofortress," AfCent posted on Twitter.

"The [B-52] will soon depart following two years in which it played an instrumental role in the fights against ISIS and the Taliban, clocking more than 1,800 sorties and approximately 12,000 weapons released against targets in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan," the message continued.

The long-range B-52 bombers, known as "Big Ugly Fat Fellow," or BUFF, transitioned back to the Pacific earlier this year, replacing the B-1Bs for an 18-month-long mission.

The B-1 took over that mission in 2016, marking the first time since 2006 that Lancers had been housed at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

In December, B-1 pilots and crew members told Military.com they were training round-the-clock for the evolving battlespace in the Middle East.

Military.com sat down with leaders from Air Force Global Strike Command's 7th Bomb Wing, responsible for producing combat-ready aircrews in the Air Force's only formal B-1B training unit, during a trip to Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, in December. The trip also included a ride in the B-1B over training ranges in New Mexico.

The aircraft, known as the "Bone," left the US Central Command area of responsibility in early 2016 and was replaced by B-52 Stratofortress bombers at Al Udeid that April.

Air Force officials at the time said the B-1B's return stateside was crucial to upgrade the fleet with the latest Integrated Battle Station, or IBS.

The IBS upgrade has been incorporated into more than half of the 62 total aircraft.

Before its 2016 departure, the aircraft deployed the most weapons of any aircraft involved in the anti-ISIS campaign, according to statistics provided to Air Force Times.

The B-1B was responsible for almost 40 percent of Air Force bombs on Islamic State targets, according to service statistics.

Now, even as the air campaign against ISIS steadily winds down, it still requires "surgical strikes," or precision-guided bombs on target as the battlespace continues to shrink, Maj. Charles "Astro" Kilchrist, chief of training for the 9th Bomb Squadron, said in December.

Meanwhile, the US has increased airstrikes in Afghanistan in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.

The Air Force has been shifting more MQ-9 Reaper drones for overwatch and strike missions; additional combat search-and-rescue squadrons; and A-10C Thunderbolt II ground attack aircraft, which recently arrived at Kandahar Airfield, for close-air support strikes.

In January, the aircraft joined F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets, C-130J Hercules mobility airlift, EC-130H Compass Call electronic attack aircraft, and other planes already in the AOR supporting these operations from Bagram Airfield.

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• President Donald Trump indicated that he wants to pull out of Syria, something that his military and foreign policy advisors have warned against.
• He told reporters that the main focus of US forces in Syria is ISIS, and that the campaign against the terror groups appears to be close to completion.
• Senior US military officials have said that US forces may need to play a role in the stabilization of the country, which is in its seventh year of war.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he wanted to "get out" of Syria and promised decisions soon, even as his advisers warned of the hard work ahead to defeat Islamic State and stabilize areas recaptured from the militant group.

Trump's remarks suggested he believed that the U.S. military-backed campaign against Islamic State in Syria was close to being complete. The Pentagon and State Department, however, have suggested a much longer-term effort is necessary.

"It's time," Trump told reporters.

"We were very successful against (Islamic State). We'll be successful against anybody militarily. But sometimes it's time to come back home, and we're thinking about that very seriously."

The United States has about 2,000 forces in Syria who are battling the group.

U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, who oversees U.S. troops in the Middle East as the head of Central Command, estimated on Tuesday that more than 90 percent of the group's territory in Syria had been taken back from the militants.

Trump estimated the percentage of territory recaptured in Iraq and Syria at "almost 100 percent," and, in a sign of his complicated views on the campaign, also said: "We will not rest until ISIS is gone."

Brett McGurk, the special U.S. envoy for the global coalition against Islamic State, speaking alongside Votel across town on Tuesday, said the U.S. fight against Islamic State was not over.

"We are in Syria to fight ISIS. That is our mission and our mission isn't over and we are going to complete that mission," McGurk said.

McGurk acknowledged a review was underway to ensure U.S. taxpayer dollars were well spent, when asked about media reports that Trump had ordered the State Department to freeze more than $200 million in funds for recovery efforts in Syria.

Votel said he saw a U.S. military role in stabilization efforts in Syria.

"The hard part, I think, is in front of us, and that is stabilizing these areas, consolidating our gains, getting people back into their homes," Votel said.

"There is a military role in this. Certainly in the stabilization phase."

(Reporting by Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali, Lesley Wroughton, and Lisa Lambert; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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• Citing a senior administration official, The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump ordered US military leaders on Tuesday to prepare to withdraw from Syria.
• Trump also said that US troops training local forces in areas liberated from the terrorist group ISIS could stay and that other Arab nations needed to help with reconstruction, according to The Post.

President Donald Trump ordered US military leaders on Tuesday to prepare to withdraw from Syria, The Washington Post reported, citing a senior administration official.

Trump did not set a date for withdrawal but said during a meeting with top national-security officials that some US troops training local forces in areas liberated from the terrorist group ISIS would stay, the Post report said.

"The military mission to eradicate ISIS in Syria is coming to a rapid end, with ISIS being almost completely destroyed," the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said on Wednesday.

"The United States and our partners remain committed to eliminating the small ISIS presence in Syria that our forces have not already eradicated. We will continue to consult with our allies and friends regarding future plans. We expect countries in the region and beyond, plus the United Nations, to work toward peace and ensure that ISIS never reemerges."

It remains unclear exactly how this would unfold and how many of the approximately 2,000 US troops in Syria would return, given that one of their main objectives was training Syrian Democratic Forces fighters instrumental in the defeat of ISIS.

Trump also said that the US troops' mission would not go beyond the defeat of ISIS and that other Arab nations would need to help with reconstruction, according to The Post.

"Saudi Arabia is very interested in our decision, and I said, 'Well, you know, you want us to stay — maybe you're going to have to pay,'"Trump said in a speech on Tuesday.

Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, told reporters Wednesday that top national-security officials had an "all hands on deck" meeting on Tuesday.

Trump said Tuesday that he expected to decide "very quickly" whether to remove US troops from war-torn Syria, saying that their primary mission was to defeat ISIS and that "we've almost completed that task."

Trump's comments contrast with the views of his top military advisers, some of whom spoke at a separate event in Washington about the need to stay in Iraq and Syria in part to defeat the terrorist group that once controlled large swaths of territory in both countries.

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• President Donald Trump reportedly said that he would be open to staying in Syria for the time being, but favors an exit soon.
• US troop levels in Syria currently sit at around 2,000.
• Several branches of the US military are active in the country, including US special forces.
• The military is acting in coordination with other parts of the US government in Syria.

After suggesting last week that the US would be pulling out of Syria "very soon," President Donald Trump reportedly told his national security team that he is open to keeping troops in the country for the time being, but wants to look to pull them out sometime soon, a senior administration official told CNN.

The US has now been involved in Syria for about three and a half years, having started its military intervention there as part of Operation Inherent Resolve in September 2014. The military has carried out numerous operations in Syria against ISIS and other targets, according to the Department of Defense, and members of the US Marines, Navy, Air Force, and Army are active in the country.

As of December 2017, there are approximately 2,000 US troops in the country. Four US soldiers have been killed in action in Syria.

The US has carried out over 14,989 airstrikes in Syria since 2014, according to the Pentagon.

While it is difficult to ascertain exactly how much the US military spent in Syria specifically, Operation Inherent Resolve as a whole has cost over over $18 billion as of February 2018, according to the Pentagon. The majority of these funds were spent on Air Force operations.

Since the US mission began, ISIS has seen its territory dwindle in Syria, and now almost all of its holdings have been conquered by local forces on the ground with US support.

US forces are fulfilling a variety of roles in the fight against ISIS

The US mission in Syria is aimed at defeating ISIS and its offshoots, providing coordination between air assets and troops on the ground and the anti-ISIS coalition. So far this mission has largely been a military success — the group has reportedly lost over 98% of its territory since it stormed across Syria and Iraq in 2014.

The US has also been supporting Syrian Kurds in Syria's north, bolstering a coalition of forces led by the Kurds called the Syrian Democratic Forces by deploying coalition advisers to train, advise, and assist the group. The SDF has conquered swathes of territory from ISIS in northeastern Syria with support from US airstrikes and special forces, and according to the Pentagon, is leading the fight against the remnants of the Islamist group in the country.

But the incredibly fractured nature of the conflict lends itself to additional challenges, Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon told Business insider.

"It's the most complex battlefield in modern warfare," he said, explaining that there are active lines of communication open between US forces and other actors in the conflict like Turkey and Russia, which serve to avoid accidental military engagements and as deconfliction hotlines.

Pahon said that now that the active fight against ISIS is drawing down, the US is pivoting to civilian reconstruction efforts, clearing IEDs, and rebuilding civilian infrastructure.

"That's a big challenge for getting people back into their homes, especially in populated areas like Raqqa," Pahon said, citing numerous ways in which fleeing ISIS fighters have booby-trapped abandoned homes with explosives.

Pahon said part of the US civilian effort is training people on the ground on how to de-mine former urban battlefields.

He also pointed out that in addition to the military aspect of US operations in the country, other parts of the US government like the State Department and USAID are also active in reconciliation efforts, recovering water access, and rebuilding the power grids in destroyed towns and cities. 

"It's more than a military effort, it's a whole of government effort," he said.

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• President Donald Trump has signaled to his advisers that he wants all troops out of Syria within six months.
• Trump has insisted that ISIS is "almost completely defeated."
• The extremist group is showing signs of a revival in Syria.

MANBIJ, Syria (AP) — Even as President Donald Trump mulls a U.S. pullout from Syria, insisting that the Islamic State group is "almost completely defeated," the extremist group is showing signs of a revival.

Despite being kicked out of the main towns they once occupied near the Iraqi border, the militants have regrouped elsewhere and revised their tactics, recently mounting a brazen attack on a border city in eastern Syria and expanding their footprint inside the Syrian capital itself.

Talk of a U.S. troop withdrawal has alarmed the Unites States' main ally in Syria, the Kurds, who fought alongside the Americans to roll back the Islamic State group. They fear not only an IS resurgence, but also that without U.S. troops in the country, Turkey, Russia and Iran will fill the void and wrest control of northern and eastern Syria.

The White House said Wednesday that the U.S. military mission against IS in Syria is coming to a "rapid end," but offered no timetable for the withdrawal of the 2,000 U.S. troops other than to say they will leave just as soon as the last remaining IS fighters can be vanquished.

Trump, however, has signaled to his advisers that ideally, he wants all troops out within six months, according to three U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss what transpired in a meeting with the president.

Developments on the ground, however, suggest it will be difficult, if not impossible, to completely snuff out the group before then.

"Daesh is not over," said the commander of the U.S.-backed Manbij Military Council, the joint Kurdish-Arab body administering this strategic northern Syrian town.

"Daesh still has cells present in all areas and every now and then there are problems in areas where the cells are still operating," said the commander, who spoke on condition he be identified only by his nom de guerre, Mohammed Abu Adel, in line with regulations, and referred to IS by its Arabic acronym.

Speaking to the Associated Press on Wednesday, he said the U.S. statements about a pullout were a cause for "concern on the street level" but that Kurdish officials were receiving reassurances from U.S. generals on the ground that American troops were staying.

Last week, an explosion killed two coalition personnel, an American and a Briton, during an operation to capture a known IS member in Manbij, where U.S. troops maintain a large presence. It was the first such blast to hit the U.S.-led coalition since it deployed in the town months after the U.S.-backed forces liberated it from IS in 2016 following fierce battles that lasted nearly three months.

Since then, the town has served as a model of stabilization, but officials are now expressing concern about IS attempting to re-emerge.

The U.S.-backed forces — a mix of Kurdish and Arab fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, — routed IS militants from almost all the territory the extremists controlled in northern Syria, including the group's de facto capital of Raqqa, in October. In November, a coalition of Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian and Russian forces secured the militant's last urban stronghold, Boukamal, in eastern Syria on the border with Iraq.

That seemed to herald victory over the militants. The various sides then turned their attention to pursuing their own interests in the disintegrated country.

The IS militants kept a sliver of territory along the Euphrates River near Boukamal, and some nebulous zones of control in the desert of eastern Syria and on the border with Iraq — but nothing that seemed beyond containment.

But in a surprise attack, the militants stormed Boukamal on Monday, triggering heavy fighting before Iranian-backed Shiite militias beat them out, according to a war monitoring group and Syrian opposition activists with connections to the region. Approximately 400 Islamic State fighters crossed the Euphrates River and ambushed the town, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, killed 11 pro-government fighters in clashes, and losing five of their own.

From their desert territory the IS militants have harassed forces at oil stations, as well, according to Mohammad al-Ayed, director of the Palmyra News Network.

U.S. and Kurdish officers had warned of an IS resurgence when Turkey attacked the town of Afrin in northwestern Syria in March to drive out the main Kurdish militia, known as the YPG.

The YPG forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces, America's main partner in Syria, which then shifted hundreds of fighters from operations against IS in eastern Syria to the front lines against Turkey in Afrin.

That forced a pause in operations against the main IS holdout in Syria. The U.S.-led coalition has cut its airstrikes against IS by half since the Kurdish-led fighters moved away from eastern Syria, said coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon.

The U.S. relies on ground maneuvers by the Syrian Democratic Forces to flush out IS fighters and expose them to airstrikes, Dillon said. "If the SDF are not constantly putting pressure on ISIS elements, that allows them to quietly reconsolidate," he added, using an alternate acronym for the Islamic State group.

Meanwhile, with the Syrian government focused on vanquishing the rebels in their stronghold of eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, IS militants surged from a pocket of territory they hold on the southern edge of the capital to snatch a neighborhood right from under the government's nose.

Some 120 pro-government fighters were killed in the battle of Qadam, according to the Observatory, losses that went unmentioned in state media. Other clashes between the two sides brought the government forces' death toll to 204 in 23 days, the Observatory said.

IS has lost almost all the territory it once controlled in Syria and Iraq, land that had encompassed a third of those countries. But the pockets it still holds provide protection.

IS fighters have excellent knowledge of the desert areas along the Syria-Iraq border, dating back to the early days of the Islamic State group and even before, when the group was called al-Qaida in Iraq, said Jalal al-Hamad, a Europe- based Syrian activist who monitors the war with an organization called Justice for Life.

IS has extensive tunnels there and can move relatively undetected, avoiding Syrian and Russian airstrikes, al-Hamad said, though American planes can detect them. The militants use bad weather, particularly dust storms, to cross the Euphrates, he said.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces control about 25 percent of Syria, and the Kurds are hoping to emerge from the conflict with a degree of self-rule in their territory.

But they fear that an American withdrawal will leave them unable to hold on to much of that. It would allow Turkey, which succeeded in capturing Afrin, to carry out its threat to attack Manbij and try to take other Kurdish-held territory along the Syrian-Turkish border.

It would also, they warn, cede the east completely to Damascus' allies Russia and Iran, which have set up a series of bases in the country during seven years of war.

Ilham Ahmed, a senior Kurdish official in Syria's Raqqa province, said an American pullout would open the way for "total chaos in Syria."

Trump appears to be unconcerned with such potential consequences, dramatically scaling back U.S. goals in Syria amid disagreements with his aides and national security team.

"As far as Syria is concerned, our primary mission in terms of that was getting rid of ISIS," Trump said. "We've completed that task."

The uncertainty puts U.S. officials in Syria in a difficult position, particularly vis-a-vis their local partners.

Dillon, the coalition spokesman, said he would not speculate on anything that's going to happen in the future.

"We're going to keep doing what we're doing until we're told otherwise," he said.

___

Issa reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this report.

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• President Donald Trump reportedly wants a quick withdrawal of US troops in Syria.
• But military officials expressed concern over a rapid pullout.
• At one point, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reportedly spoke up and told Trump that his approach was not productive and asked him to give the officials specific instructions as to what he wanted.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has spoken: He wants U.S. troops and civilians out of Syria by the fall. But don’t call it a “timeline.”

Wary of charges of hypocrisy for publicly telegraphing military strategy after criticizing former President Barack Obama for the same thing, the White House has ordered Trump’s national security team not to speak of a “timeline” for withdrawal. That’s even after Trump made it clear to his top aides this week that he wants the pullout completed within five or six months.

It wasn’t the result top national security aides wanted. Trump’s desire for a rapid withdrawal faced unanimous opposition from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon, the State Department and the intelligence community, all of which argued that keeping the 2,000 U.S. soldiers currently in Syria is key to ensuring the Islamic State does not reconstitute itself.

But as they huddled in the Situation Room, the president was vocal and vehement in insisting that the withdrawal be completed quickly if not immediately, according to five administration officials briefed on Tuesday’s White House meeting of Trump and his top aides. The officials weren’t authorized to discuss internal deliberations and requested anonymity.

If those aides failed in obtaining their desired outcome, it may have been because a strategy that’s worked in the past — giving Trump an offer he can’t refuse — appears to have backfired.

Rather than offer Trump a menu of pullout plans, with varying timelines and options for withdrawing step-by-step, the team sought to frame it as a binary choice: Stay in Syria to ensure the Islamic State can’t regroup, or pull out completely. Documents presented to the president included several pages of possibilities for staying in, but only a brief description of an option for full withdrawal that emphasized significant risks and downsides, including the likelihood that Iran and Russia would take advantage of a U.S. vacuum.

Ultimately, Trump chose that option anyway.

The president had opened the meeting with a tirade about U.S. intervention in Syria and the Middle East more broadly, repeating lines from public speeches in which he’s denounced previous administrations for “wasting” $7 trillion in the region over the past 17 years.

What has the U.S. gotten for the money and American lives expended in Syria? “Nothing,” Trump said over and over, according to the officials.

The intensity of Trump’s tone and demeanor raised eyebrows and unease among the top brass gathered to hash out a Syria plan with Trump, officials said: Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Defense Secretary James Mattis, CIA chief Mike Pompeo and acting Secretary of State John Sullivan.

At one point, Dunford spoke up, one official said, telling Trump that his approach was not productive and asked him to give the group specific instructions as to what he wanted.

Trump’s response was to demand an immediate withdrawal of all American troops and an end to all U.S. civilian stabilization programs designed to restore basic infrastructure to war-shattered Syrian communities.

Mattis countered, arguing that an immediate withdrawal could be catastrophic and was logistically impossible to pull off in any responsible way, without risking the return of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in newly liberated territories, the officials said. Mattis floated a one-year withdrawal as an alternative.

Trump then relented — but only slightly, telling his aides they could have five or six months to complete the mission to destroy the Islamic State and then get out, according to the officials. Trump also indicated that he did not want to hear in October that the military had been unable to fully defeat the Islamic State and had to remain in Syria for longer.

The president had spoken. But what to say about it publicly?

In a brief and vague statement released the day after the meeting, the White House said the U.S. role in Syria is coming to a “rapid end” and emphasized that the U.S. was counting on other countries and the U.N. to deal with Syria’s future. But it offered no specificity as to the timing of a U.S. withdrawal.

“The president has actually been very good in not giving us a specific timeline,” Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, director of the Joint Staff, said Thursday. “We’ve always thought that as we reach finale against ISIS in Syria, we’re going to adjust the level of our presence there. So in that sense, nothing has actually changed.”

Pentagon officials stressed that no formal order had been handed down to the military to alter course or start a withdrawal. Nonetheless, the officials said Trump was clear in his intent.

For Trump, any notion of a “timeline” comes with significant political risk. After all, he had regularly bashed Obama on the campaign trail for forecasting his military moves in advance. In fact, Trump was so critical of Obama for putting an arbitrary deadline on the 2011 Iraq withdrawal that he dubbed Obama “the founder of ISIS,” arguing that Obama had signaled to al-Qaida sympathizers in Iraq that they need only wait the U.S. out.

And Trump’s whole strategy for dealing with Afghanistan, for example, is based on the idea that the U.S. presence should be “conditions-based” and not time-based.

“I’m not like other administrations, where they say we’re going to do this in four weeks and that. It doesn’t work that way,” Trump said last year, shortly after becoming president.

___

This story corrects attribution of Thursday quote in paragraph 17 to Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, director of the Joint Staff, not Gen. Joseph Dunford.

___

Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

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• President Donald Trump reportedly wants an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Syria.
• Top military officials reportedly tried to push back on the demand.
• Trump countered with a pitch for the military to destroy the Islamic State within five to six months, and then withdraw from the country.

President Donald Trump is sounding off about an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Syria, according to multiple news reports published on Thursday.

But the president reportedly faced some strong opposition from top military officials, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Joe Dunford, who warned Trump of the consequences of a rapid withdrawal, during a meeting on Tuesday.

After Trump ranted about the US "wasting" trillions of dollars in the Middle East during the meeting, he claimed that it had achieved "nothing" in return, according to officials familiar with the discussions.

During the meeting, Dunford reportedly said Trump's plan was not productive and asked the president for clear instructions on what to do, The Associated Press reported.

Mattis chimed in and argued that a quick pull-out would not only be detrimental to the US, but doing so in a responsible manner would be logistically impossible. Mattis reportedly suggested a one-year withdrawal timeframe instead.

Trump then countered and gave officials five to six months to destroy the Islamic State and then withdraw, officials told The Associated Press.

Trump also indicated that he expects the military to succeed in destroying ISIS by October.

The reservations that Mattis and Dunford have expressed about US troops leaving Syria too quickly may be rooted in worries that ISIS militants are looking for ways to regroup in the region, according to the Military Times.

"Daesh is not over," a commander of the US-backed Manbij Military Council said, referring to the transliteration of ISIS's Arabic acronym. "Daesh still has cells present in all areas and every now and then there are problems in areas where the cells are still operating."

Around 2,000 US troops are in Syria as of December 2017. Four US soldiers have been killed in action since the US became involved about three and a half years ago as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.

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• President Donald Trump once questioned why the CIA had waited for a drone-strike target to walk away from his family before killing him, according to The Washington Post.
• On the campaign trail, Trump publicly advocated killing the families of terrorists.
• He has also spoken in favor of using imprecise, large-scale military power against enemies in Syria and Afghanistan.

President Donald Trump was once apparently unhappy with the CIA's desire to minimize civilian casualties when carrying out drone strikes, according to a Washington Post source who The Post said attended a meeting with Trump and agency officials.

On Trump's first full day in office, in January 2017, according to The Post, the CIA showed Trump a recording of a drone strike in which operators had waited to strike until the target wandered away from his home, which had his family inside. But Trump apparently questioned the move.

"Why did you wait?" the person at the meeting recalled Trump saying.

The Post suggested Trump more generally seemed unimpressed by new military capabilities designed to limit civilian casualties; its sources said he commanded the CIA to begin arming its drones in Syria, where the agency had largely been flying surveillance missions and leaving strikes up to the US military.

Trump has publicly expressed disregard for civilian lives in war zones — on the campaign trail in December 2015, he expressed a similar sentiment on "Fox & Friends."

"We're fighting a very politically correct war," Trump said. "When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives — don't kid yourself."

Trump has also advocated the use of overwhelming force against terrorist groups like the Islamic State.

Last April, Trump gave the Pentagon a free hand to use the largest nonnuclear bomb in the US arsenal, known as the "Mother of All Bombs," to strike at a cave complex inhabited by suspected ISIS fighters in Afghanistan.

"We have given them total authorization, and that's what they're doing and frankly that's why they've been so successful lately," the president said at the time. "If you look at what's happened over the last eight weeks and compare that really to what's happened over the past eight years, you'll see there's a tremendous difference, tremendous difference."

The explosion produced a mushroom cloud 5 miles high that was visible for miles around.

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