Trump orders US troops out of northern Syria as Turkish assault continues – The Guardian, Theguardian.com

Amidgrowing chaos in Syria, Donald Trump has ordered all US troops to withdraw from the country north to avoid a bloody conflict between Turkey and formerly US -backed Kurdish fighters that “gets worse by the hour”, defense secretary Mark Esper said on Sunday.

Esper,who spoke to CBS’s Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday, did not say the approximately 1, 000 US troops in Syria would leave the country entirely. Trump’s national security team planned to meet to assess the situation, he said, as US officials continue to urge Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to halt his incursion.

Asked if he thought Turkey, a Nato ally, would deliberately attack US troops inSyria, Esper said: “I don ‘ t know whether they would or wouldn’t. ”

He cited an incident on Friday in which a small number of troops fell under artillery fire at an observation post in the north. Esper called that an example of “indiscriminate fire” coming close to Americans, adding it was unclear whether that was an accident.

The Washington Postreportedthat US officials believe Turkish forces knew Americans were in the area.

Brett McGurk, the former US envoy to the global coalition against the Islamic State whoresignedover Trump’s attempts to withdraw from Syria, told the paper: “Turkey wants us off the entire border region to a depth of 30 km [20 miles]. Based on all the facts available, these were warning fires on a known location, not inadvertent rounds. ”

Esper said he spoke to Trump on Saturday night amid growing signs the Turkish invasion, which began on Wednesday, was growing more dangerous.

“In the last 24 hours, we learned that they are likely intend to expand their attack further south than originally planned – and to the west, ”Esper said.

The American troops have been working for five years with a Kurd-led Syrian group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces to combatIslamic State. Turkey has long objected to the US-Kurd alliance because Turkey considers elements of that force to be terrorists tied to an insurgency inside Turkey.

The US has now come to believe the Kurds are attempting to “cut a deal” with the Syrian army and Russia to counter the invading Turks, Esper said. As a result, Trump “directed that we begin a deliberate withdrawal of forces from northern Syria”.

In tweets on Sunday, Trumpsaid: “Very smart not to be involved in the intense fighting along the Turkish Border, for a change… Others may want to come in and fight for one side or the other. Let them! ”

Esper said he would not discuss a timeline for the US pullback, but said it would be done “as safely and quickly as possible”. He did not say how many US troops would leave the north, but said they represented most of the troops in Syria.

The Pentagon had said before the operation began that theUS militarywould not support it, and the US pulled about 30 special operations troops out of observation posts along the invasion route on the Syrian border.

Esper said he was aware of reports of hundreds ofIsis prisoners escapingas a result of the Turkish invasion and ofatrocities being committed against Syrian Kurdsby members of a Turkish-supported Syrian Arab militia.

“It gets worse by the hour,” Esper said. “These are all the exact things” that US officials warned Erdoğan would likely happen if he ignored US urgings not to invade northern Syria.

More than 130, 000 people have been displaced from rural areas around Tel Abyad and Ras al Ain as a result of the fighting, the United Nations said on Sunday.

Eliot Engel, the Democratic chair of the House foreign affairs committee, told NBC’s Meet the Press he could “think of nothing more disgusting in all the years I’ve been in Congress than what this president is allowing to happen with the Kurds.

“They have been our loyal and faithful allies for so many years, and after this, who again would trust the United States to be an ally of them?”

Esper said there was “no way” US forces could have stopped the Turks, who assembled a force of about 15, 000 on the Syrian border, supported by air power.

“We did not sign up to fight Turkey, a longstanding Nato ally, on behalf of the [Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces]. This is a terrible situation, ”he said.

Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin held out the possibility of quick action to impose sanctions on Turkey, a move Trump has threatened if the Turks push too far.

“We’ll be taking in new information and we’re ready to go at a moment’s notice to put on sanctions,” Mnuchin told ABC’s This Week. “Now we have warned the Turks… They know what we will do if they don’t stop these activities.”

Trumptweetedthat he was dealing with Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican senator who has stringently criticized the withdrawal, “and many members of Congress, including Democrats, about imposing powerful sanctions on Turkey. Treasury is ready to go, additional legislation may be sought.

“There is great consensus on this. Turkey has asked that it not be done. Stay tuned! ”