The Obama administration announced Friday that it would deploy a small number of special-operations forces to Syria in an advisory role.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a press conference Friday that fewer than 50 US commandos would be working in Syria to aid coalition and local forces in fighting Islamic State militants.
"When it comes to northern Syria in particular, we have seen moderate forces who have driven ISIS out of Kobani," Earnest said.
The deployment will likely include US forces operating alongside Kurdish YPG forces and the wider Syrian Democratic Forces movement, which includes the YPG and Arab fighters. But, Earnest said, the US forces "do not have a combat mission."
The move reflects a wider strategy of strengthening moderate rebels in Syria even with Washington intensifying its efforts to find a diplomatic solution to end to the approximately 4.5-year-long Syrian civil war in which at least 200,000 people have died.
Earnest spoke to this as well, adding: "The root cause [of the war] can only be addressed by a political transition that the administration believes is long overdue."
A senior US official told NBC News that the move would be a "shift" of US strategy in ongoing operations against the Islamic State, but Earnest insisted that the move is simply "an intensification of a strategy that the president announced more than a year ago."
The new US strategy to assist in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria will be accompanied by a new special-operations force in Erbil in northern Iraq, "intensified" cooperation with Iraqis in retaking Ramadi, and expanded security assistance to Jordan and Lebanon, a senior congressional source told Reuters on Friday.
"The administration's decision to deploy approximately 50 special operations forces to Northern Syria represents a serious new commitment in the fight against ISIS and has the potential of escalating America's role in the war," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.
This shift in strategy comes after Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced on Tuesday at a Senate Armed Services Committee that the US would engage the Islamic State more aggressively.
"The changes we're pursuing can be described by what I call the 'three R's' — Raqqa, Ramadi, and raids," Carter said during his testimony, highlighting the new bold strategy that the Pentagon is hoping to implement in both Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS.
The deployment of special-operations teams in northeast Syria is a clear signal that the Obama administration is moving through with at least the first "R" of Carter's strategy. Raqqa, ISIS' de facto capital, is located near the frontlines of where ISIS and Kurdish YPG forces have clashed.
The deployment of special-operations forces to the region could indicate that the US is pushing groups on the ground to make a strike at the heart of ISIS control in the region.
As a sign of the Pentagon's increasingly aggressive stance against ISIS, US Special Operations mounted its first official anti-ISIS raid in Iraq last week against a militant-run prison. The raid resulted in the freeing of 69 ISIS-held hostages, the capture of ISIS militants, and the death of the first US service member in Iraq since the 2011 US withdrawal.
(Reuters reporting by Arshad Mohammed, Patricia Zengerle, and Mark Hosenball)
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