ISTANBUL – The Pentagon is discussing keeping a “residual force” of U.S. troops around oil fields in Syria, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said Monday, as a large U.S. military convoy withdrew from a region of northeastern Syria where Turkey is seeking to establish a buffer zone.
Esper, speaking during a visit to Afghanistan, said the purpose of the residual force would be to “ deny access, specifically revenue to ISIS and any other groups that might want to seek that revenue to enable their own malign activities. ”He was referring to the Islamic State militant group.
The proposal to keep troops in Syria “in some cities” has not yet been presented to President Trump, Esper added.
Esper’s made the comments about a need to stand sentry at Syria’s oil fields as another U.S. mission in the country was approaching its high-profile conclusion: a partnership with Syrian Kurdish militias to fight the Islamic State.
Trump’s announcement of a U.S. withdrawal earlier this month cleared the way for a Turkish military offensive into northeastern Syria. Critics charged that Trump abandoned Syrian Kurdish allies who had lost hundreds of fighters while helping beat back the extremist group.
Turkey regards the Kurdish-led militias in Syria as a security threat because of their links to a Kurdish militant group that has fought a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey.
A cease-fire agreement reached by the United States and the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday committed Turkey to a five-day pause in the offensive to allow the Syrian-Kurdish fighters to withdraw from a “safe zone” in northeastern Syria.
Both Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have accused each other of violating the cease-fire’s terms, while US officials have said the truce is generally holding.
As part of the ongoing U.S. withdrawal, a convoy of dozens of vehicles left Syria on Monday, most flying large American flags. Videos that circulated online showed some residents in northern Syria heckling the soldiers and pelting vehicles with objects, said to be rocks and rotten vegetables.
Trump has defended the withdrawal as part of his overarching pledge to stop US involvement in “endless wars” in the Middle East.
But that pledge has come with significant caveats. The Pentagon announced earlier this month that it was sending 1, 800 additional troops to Saudi Arabia after attacks on two oil facilities there that the United States has blamed on
The proposal to keep securing oil fields in Syria, indefinitely, could rely on a force of about 200 US troops in eastern Syria, a U.S. official said. It was intended to deter not only the Islamic State from profiting from the oil, the official said, but also Syria’s own government, which is steadily recovering territory it lost during the civil war as it advances with backing from Russia and Iran.
Trump hinted at the plans two days ago, when he wrote on Twitter that “we have secured the oil,” without providing more detail. On Sunday, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (RS.C.) said on the Fox News Channel that the United States was going to “deny the oil fields falling into Iranian hands.”
Graham, a Trump ally who had criticized the administration for its handling of the Turkish offensive, said he was “increasingly optimistic it could turn out well.”
“The big thing for me is the oil fields,” he said. “I believe we are on the verge of a joint venture between us and the Syrian Democratic Forces, who helped destroy ISIS and keep them destroyed, to modernize the oil fields and make sure they get the revenue, not the Iranians, not Assad.”
George reported from Kabul. Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.
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