Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday American special operations troops being sent to Syria would only fight Islamic State militants and would not become involved in the country’s long-running civil war. As he did so, US-backed rebels attacked Isis in the north-east of the country.

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Deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken, meanwhile, told a policy conference in Bahrain Moscow’s intervention in the Syrian conflict would have the unintended consequences of drawing Russia into a quagmire and alienating Sunni Muslims across the region.

Russia began airstrikes a month ago, changing the balance of forces in the war in favour of President Bashar al-Assad and against rebel groups that include both jihadists and non-militants backed by the West, Turkey and Gulf countries.



In Syria, a newly formed US-backed rebel alliance launched an offensive against Isis in the north-eastern province of Hasaka. It was the first declared operation by the Democratic Forces of Syria, which joins a US-backed Kurdish militia and several Syrian Arab rebel groups, since it announced its formation earlier this month.

Fighting in Hasaka had begun after midnight, a spokesman for the alliance said. A group monitoring the war reported fighting and coalition air strikes in the area. A video posted earlier on YouTube announced the offensive in southern Hasaka, and showed several dozen men in fatigues standing outdoors with yellow flags and banners carrying the name of the Democratic Forces of Syria in Arabic and Kurdish.

The campaign would “continue until all occupied areas in Hasaka are freed from Daesh,” a spokesman for the alliance’s general command said in the video, using an Arabic name for Isis. He urged residents to stay away from Isis-controlled areas of Hasaka. Another spokesman later said alliance forces had already attacked Islamic State fighters.

“The battle began after midnight,” Talal Salu told Reuters via an internet messaging service. “They were flanked by our forces... [who] thwarted a counter attack.”

Kerry, speaking on Saturday at a news conference in Kyrgyzstan alongside the country’s foreign minister, Erlan Abdyldaev, called Isis a threat to every nation and said US policy was clear – the group must be defeated. He would not rule out a further US escalation of the fight, saying he could not predict the future.

The Obama administration will send up to 50 special operations troops to assist Kurdish and Arab forces in northern Syria, in the first pledge of American military boots on the ground in Syria.

In Bahrain, Blinken said of the Russian strikes against Isis and non-Isis rebel targets: “The quagmire will spread and deepen, drawing Russia further in. Russia will be seen as being in league with Assad, Hezbollah, Iran, alienating millions of Sunnis in Syria, the region and indeed in Russia itself.”

Blinken was speaking to the Manama Dialogue regional security conference, in Bahrain.



The Obama administration’s new strategy may help ease Americans back into the realities of war, but regional experts as well as some of Obama’s political allies say his slow ramp-up may be insufficient to defeat the fast-moving militants.

“Deploying a handful of US special operations forces to Syria will not change this situation significantly,” Frederic Hof, Obama’s former Syria special adviser, said of Friday’s announcement. “It is a Band-Aid of sorts.”

Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Obama’s home state of Hawaii, said the latest escalation “is unlikely to succeed in achieving our objective of defeating [Isis] and instead threatens to embroil the United States in Syria’s civil war”.

The campaign against Isis, which began with air strikes in Iraq and Syria last summer, is nowhere near the size and scope of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the strikes continue, Obama has repeatedly used the costly and unpopular Iraq war in particular as an example of what he has tried to avoid in the region.

The significance of Friday’s announcement was more about the location of the deployment, not the number of troops. It marks the first time the US has openly sent forces into Syria, expanding the geographic reach of Obama’s military efforts. The White House argued the president wasn’t back-tracking on a commitment to keep US troops out of Syria because the presence would be narrow in size and scope.

But to some, the White House appears more concerned about being able to keep that political promise than in taking action that could have a more substantial impact in resolving the situation on the ground.

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“War has a harsh reality in that in order to have an effect you have to be present,” said Jerry Hendrix, a retired navy flight officer and the director of the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program at the Center for a New American Security.

The White House put no timetable on how long the American forces would stay in Syria, though Obama has previously said he expects the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria to last beyond his presidency.

The escalation of the Pentagon’s campaign against the Islamic State follows Obama’s announcement two weeks ago that he was reversing course and keeping American troops in Afghanistan beyond next year. That means the president who inherited two military conflicts will likely hand his successor three.

World powers and regional rivals are convening in Vienna to seek a solution to the four-year conflict in Syria.

