A growing number of videos and pictures released in the past week show large numbers of US armored vehicles being delivered into Syrian Kurdistan, suggesting a massive escalation in the positioning of US military assets in the country.

Officials insist that the vehicles shown in the videos are not in any way part of US military aid being provided to the Kurdish YPG, suggesting that the US is deploying the vehicles there with the intention of American troops using them.

This must inevitably raise questions about whether this undeniably substantial vehicle surge into Syrian Kurdistan portends a major new deployment of US ground troops into the area to operate them. That these are armored vehicles also suggests further loosening of the US “non-combat” claims.

Unfortunately, we may not get a definitive answer about more US ground deployments, as the Pentagon has made it a matter of policy not to offer specific US troop levels in either Iraq or Syria, a decision that was made after months of overtly lying about troop levels in Iraq to pretend they hadn’t exceeded negotiated caps.