U.S. Says 2,000 Troops Are in Syria, a Fourfold Increase
6, 2017
WASHINGTON — About 2,000 American troops are in Syria fighting the Islamic State, a Pentagon spokesman said on Wednesday, almost
four times the total previously disclosed as the Trump administration changes how troop numbers are publicly counted.
Pentagon said that The campaign to defeat ISIS is now in a new phase in Iraq and Syria,
The 1,500 or so previously undisclosed troops in Syria include traditional combat forces like infantry, artillery
and forward air controllers trained to call in airstrikes, as well as support personnel, said Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman.
Mr. Mattis directed the Pentagon months ago to revise how it accounts for deployed personnel fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
But Colonel Manning said the number of troops in Syria "are generally trending downward," and noted
that an artillery battalion of 400 Marines deployed near Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate, had recently returned to the United States.
