The regime of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad claimed Monday through state-run media that Turkey began launching aerial attacks across the border, as American troops are obeying President Donald Trump's order to withdraw to the United States.

Trump defended his decision as unconfirmed reports of airstrikes blanketed Twitter, largely traceable back to unverified amateur video. Syrian government-run SANA TV called it 'Turkish aggression' targeting the 'north-eastern countryside' of Syria where some Kurdish forces are based.

Claims of airstrikes are likely to ramp up military tensions and benefit both Syria and Russia, which aim to be viewed as targets rather than aggressors. Turkey reportedly denied launching any aerial attacks near its border with Syria.

They will also inflame tensions between Trump and Republicans with a swathe of senior party figures including Mitch McConnell, Nikki Haley and Lindsey Graham breaking with the president for pulling U.S. troops out - with Mitt Romney calling it a 'betrayal.'

President Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday that he had told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erogdan – presumably during a Sunday phone call – that there would be consequences if harm comes to the dozens of remaining American servicemen and women there.

He warned Erdogan: 'I don't want anything bad to happen to our people' during the troop withdrawal, and promised 'big trouble' if casualties result.

Trump mainly washed his hands of the Syrian military quagmire, saying any resurgence of the ISIS terror army would no longer be America's immediate concern.

Countries in what he said is 'not a friendly neighborhood' will have to make do without the United States, Trump said after signing a trade agreement at the White House.

'Iran is an example. Hates ISIS, and ISIS hates Iran. Iraq, you know all about that. Turkey. Syria,' he rattled off.

'Let them take care of it. Let them take care of it. We want to bring our troops back home.'

Donald Trump, pictured during a trade agreement signing in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, issued a stern defense on Monday of his decision to withdraw American forces from parts of northern Syria, a move that will make way for a Turkish invasion in the region and likely doom the Kurdish fighters who the U.S. has been aiding for years

Unconfirmed reports of Turkish airstrikes against Syrian border positions swirled online Monday but Turkey reportedly denied it was behind them and the footage has not been authenticated

Turkish armored vehicles carrying commandos moved toward the Syrian border on Monday after the U.S. announced it would no longer have a presence there

The area inhabited by Kurdish people straddles Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia, and the area currently controlled by the Kurds crosses over Iraq and Syria. Turkey fears an independent Kurdish state would threaten its security

Trump said the explosive disassembly of the ISIS caliphate had left tens of thousands of people in custody including both soldiers and civilians, 'and we can't release them.'

'I told president Erdogan, 'It's going to be your responsibility,' he said of Turkey's leader.

Across the Potomac, the Pentagon was gearing up for a potential blame game.

'The Department of Defense made clear to Turkey – as did the President – that we do not endorse a Turkish operation in Northern Syria,' spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement. 'The U.S. Armed Forces will not support, or be involved in any such operation.'

Meanwhile Republican allies of the president lined up to express their outrage at the the result for Syria's Kurdish minority who will soon find themselves trapped in a geographic squeeze without America's continued backing.

'The Department of Defense made clear to Turkey – as did the President – that we do not endorse a Turkish operation in Northern Syria. The U.S. Armed Forces will not support, or be involved in any such operation Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman

'Now really, who is responsible? It's really Russia. It's Turkey. It's Iran. It's Iraq. And it's Syria. And anybody else in the neighborhood, ok? We call it a neighborhood. It's not a friendly neighborhood. 'But these countries should do it.'

Trump didn't foreclose the idea of bringing U.S. troops back into northern Syria, but warned that 'we're 7000 miles away.'

'These ISIS people, whatever you want to call them – these people are right there,' he said of nearby nations. And any Islamist resurgence would be 'right there, they're touching many of those countries that I just named.'

Trump took incoming from his allies in Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called his pullout a 'retreat' that 'would increase the risk that ISIS and other terrorist groups regroup.'

Trump's Republican allies, one after another, condemned his decision. Some focused on potential harm to American interests in the Middle East. Others warned that the troop pullout could doom hundreds of thousands of Kurds to a Turkish genocide.

The president responded by warning the Turks not to test his 'great and unmatched wisdom' and threatening to 'destroy' the country's economy if they did anything 'off limits' – an apparent reference to the possibility of Turkey invading Kurdish territory in Syria.

Within hours Turkey was reportedly denying unverified video on Twitter suggesting that it may have launched airstrikes on the Syrian border.

McConnell was unmoved by Trump's online justifications, saying senators still see a threat in Syria from the ISIS terror army and other sources of jihadist resurgence.

The President of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of Heaven if he permits this to happen TV evangelist Pat Robertson

And '[a]s we learned the hard way during the Obama Administration,' McConnell added, 'American interests are best served by American leadership, not by retreat or withdrawal.'

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump's closest friends in Congress, also blasted him in a tweet, calling the move 'a stain on America's honor' and 'a disaster in the making.'

'The biggest lie being told by the administration [is] that ISIS is defeated,' Graham said on 'Fox & Friends,' adding: 'The caliphate is destroyed but there are thousands of fighters over there. And no, the caliphate would not have been destroyed without the Kurds.'

'To say to the American people that ISIS has been destroyed in Syria is not true,' he insisted.

Kurdish forces in Syria currently hold more than 10,000 ISIS fighters prisoner, and the move risks a resurgence of ISIS, Trump's former envoy for the fight against the Islamist army, Brett McGurk, tweeted.

McConnell added his disapproval to that of Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio and a growing list of other presidential confidants. Even televangelist Pat Robertson, a longtime conservative voice among Bible-belt Christians, issued a televised slap.

Trump, he said, 'is now allowing the Christians and the Kurds to be massacred by the Turks.'

'The President of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of Heaven if he permits this to happen,' Robertson added

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (pictured Monday) broke with the president on the Syria drawdown, calling it a 'retreat' of the sort that Barack Obama showed was unwise. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump's closest allies in Congress, blasted him: 'The biggest lie being told by the administration [is] that ISIS is defeated

The president insisted in social media posts that Turkey must take responsibility for ISIS captives that the U.S. has been holding, and warked that he could crush Turkey's economy if the nation did 'anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits'

An American soldier sits atop an armored vehicle during a demonstration by Syrian Kurds against Turkish threats next to a base for the US-led international coalition on the outskirts of Ras al-Ain town in Syria's Hasakeh province on Sunday, before U.S. forces started pulling back from Turkish border areas

A photograph taken on October 7, 2019 shows a military base from which US forces pulled out in the town of Tel Arqam in Syria's Hasakeh province near the Turkish border on October 6

Graham quickly challenged Trump's great and unmatched wisdom,' taunting him about being 'unwise' by leaving the Kurds to die and letting ISIS get off the mat

Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, a Trump appointee in that job, said that 'leaving [Kurds] to die is a big mistake'

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, a former Trump election rival who hsa since warmed to the president, joined the pile-on with his own criticism on Monday

The president's announcement sent shockwaves through the U.S. government, with officials telling Fox News that top officials at the Defense Department were 'completely blindsided' and 'shocked' by the order.

Trump reportedly said nothing to Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan about a planned withdrawal during a phone call between the two leaders on Sunday.

Photographs on Sunday of a U.S. military base in the Syrian border village of Tel Arqam showed a virtual ghost town, with American troops bugged out and clearing the way for Turks to invade.

By morning's end he was mounting a full-throated defense on Twitter, saying his decision would disadvantage Russia and China, and emphasizing that he could order troops to return on short notice.

But Trump's sudden decision to wash his hands of the troubled region left his political compatriots anxious.

'The Kurds were instrumental in our successful fight against ISIS in Syria. Leaving them to die is a big mistake,' former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley tweeted.

Mitch McConnell's statement on Trump's Syria troop withdrawal 'In January, a supermajority of the U.S. Senate voted for an amendment that expressed bipartisan concern about the continuing threat posed by ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria, appreciation of the long-term American security interests in Syria and the region, and support for a continued military presence in northeastern Syria. 'The conditions that produced that bipartisan vote still exist today. While the physical caliphate has been removed, ISIS and al Qaeda remain dangerous forces in Syria and the ongoing Syrian civil war poses significant security and humanitarian risks. 'A precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria would only benefit Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime. And it would increase the risk that ISIS and other terrorist groups regroup. 'I urge the President to exercise American leadership to keep together our multinational coalition to defeat ISIS and prevent significant conflict between our NATO ally Turkey and our local Syrian counterterrorism partners. Major new conflict between Turkey and our partners in Syria would seriously risk damaging Turkey’s ties to the United States and causing greater isolation for Turkey on the world stage. 'As we learned the hard way during the Obama Administration, American interests are best served by American leadership, not by retreat or withdrawal.' Advertisement

'If reports about US retreat in #Syria are accurate,' Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said in a tweet, 'the Trump administration has made a grave mistake that will have implications far beyond Syria.'

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on 'Fox & Friends' that 'I want to make sure we keep our word for those who fight with us and help us,' adding that, 'If you make a commitment and somebody is fighting with you. America should keep their word.'

One of the show’s hosts, Brian Kilmeade, asked McCarthy to try to intervene and 'call the president before it’s too late.'

Even Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took a shot at Trump on Twitter for leaving the Kurds in the lurch.

'Our enemies and rivals (Iran, Russia, etc.) don’t abandon their allies; if we want allies to stand with America in the future, we shouldn’t either. Honorable nations stand by their friends,' Cruz tweeted.

'It would also be DISGRACEFUL if we sat idly by while Turkey slaughters the Kurds, as public reports suggest that Turkish leader Erdogan explicitly told President Trump he intends to do.'

Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and failed 2016 presidential candidate, blasted Trump.

'Let us be clear: The president has sided with authoritarian leaders of Turkey and Russia over our loyal allies and America’s own interests,' Clinton tweeted. 'His decision is a sickening betrayal both of the Kurds and his oath of office.'

Her own State Department, however, tweeted on her behalf in 2012 that President Tayyip Erdogan and #Turkey were 'strong stalwarts on behalf of the Syrian people.'

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2012, aso said leaving the Kurds to twist in the wind would be a 'betrayal.'

Trump issued stern defense after stern defense of his decision on Monday, a move that will make way for a Turkish invasion in the region and endanger the Kurdish fighters who the U.S. has been aiding for years.

Erdogan announced the launch of his long-planned offensive on Monday. Trump dug in his heels after announcing the troop withdrawal.

'[I]f Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!),' he boasted.

'They must, with Europe and others, watch over the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!'

Trump had tweeted earlier that 'I was elected on getting out of these ridiculous endless wars, where our great Military functions as a policing operation to the benefit of people who don’t even like the USA.'

'The two most unhappy countries at this move are Russia & China, because they love seeing us bogged down, watching over a quagmire, & spending big dollars to do so. When I took over, our Military was totally depleted. Now it is stronger than ever before. The endless and ridiculous wars are ENDING! We will be focused on the big picture, knowing we can always go back & BLAST!'

Turkish-backed Syrian fighters gathered near the Syrian-Turkish border north of Aleppo on Monday as U.S. forces in northern Syria started pulling back from areas along the Turkish border ahead of a feared military invasion that Kurdish forces say would spark a jihadist resurgence

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, tweeted that Trump's move could trigger a broader Middle East war

Sen. Graham tweeted that the president's move 'will be a stain on America's honor' and 'is a disaster in the making'

President Trump played defense on Monday, pushing back against his critics by saying China and Russia will be unhappy with the result and emphasizing that the U.S. military can return to Syria at any time

Trump had in the early morning justified his decision in a five-part 247-word tweetstorm, framing it as part of a larger policy of pulling U.S. troops out of 'ridiculous Endless Wars' and insisting that the ISIS caliphate is now '100%' defeated.

'WE WILL FIGHT WHERE IT IS TO OUR BENEFIT, AND ONLY FIGHT TO WIN, the U.S. president wrote in allcaps.

He fumed at European allies' refusal to accept the repatriation of their citizens who U.S. forces have captured as fighters for the ISIS terror army.

And he appeared unmoved by international concerns that a power vacuum will favor an ISIS resurgence and a Kurdish slaughter.

The move also left United Nations and European leaders aghast over fears of ethnic cleansing.

The UN warned Turkey not to allow a civilian massacre on the scale of the Bosnian war after the U.S. announced it would step aside and allow Erogdan to move his troops across the Syrian border.

Fears of chaos in refugee camps and Kurdish-controlled prisons followed.

Bosnian Serb troops slaughtered 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995 at Srebrenica during the Bosnian civil war.

Graham blasted Trump on Monday. 'The biggest lie being told by the administration [is] that ISIS is defeated,' Graham said on 'Fox & Friends.'

Trump made his case for bugging out of Syria in a series of tweets that appeared to please no one on Monday morning

UN officials said they were 'preparing for the worst,' where it was feared any new offensive from Ankara would lead to high civilian casualties and lead to mass displacement.

The move marks a major shift in U.S. policy, and effectively abandons the Kurds, who were Washington's main ally in the years-old battle against ISIS.

Trump later defended his administration's decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria, saying 'the Kurds will now have to figure the situation out.'

He said it was too costly to keep supporting U.S.-allied Kurdish-led forces in the region fighting the Islamic State.

'The Kurds fought with us, but were paid massive amounts of money and equipment to do so. They have been fighting Turkey for decades,' Trump said in a series of tweets. Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to figure the situation out.'

Civilians must be spared in any Turkish military operation in northeast Syria, where the United Nations hopes that mass displacement and Srebrenica-like killings can be prevented, a senior UN aid official said.

It was feared the departure of the U.S. from the volatile border region could leave Turkey free to crush the Kurds, who hoped to forge their own state in the aftermath of the defeat of ISIS.

U.S. soldiers previously worked closely with Kurdish forces of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by the YPG militia, in the battle to destroy Islamic State's caliphate.

An abandoned checkpoint was seen in Tel Abyad in northern Syria as U.S. troops evacuated the border town on Monday

The White House released a statement Sunday, saying President Trump spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erogdan by telephone to discuss the plans for Turkey to invade Northern Syria (both leaders pictured in June 2019)

But Turkey considers the YPG to be a terrorist group and has long threatened to launch an assault on the Kurds as Ankara sees the group's growing power along its border as a threat to its security.

The U.S. has already warned Kurdish fighters that they will not defend them from any Turkish attack, an unnamed American official has claimed.

Russian said Syria's territorial integrity must be preserved, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated hours after the announcement.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said they had been 'stabbed in the back' by a surprise U.S. statement that U.S. forces would not be involved in a Turkish operation in northern Syria, the SDF said.

Turkey said it will not permit ISIS to return, amid fears its threatened offensive against a Kurdish militia in Syria could bolster the jihadists, a presidential spokesman said.

Speaking after a phone call with President Trump, Erdogan said that the operation could begin at any moment as Russia warned Syria's territorial integrity must be preserved.

Following the announcement of Washington's abrupt decision to stand aside, the UN has said it is 'preparing for the worst' in the region, fearing an assault could send civilians fleeing.

Kurdish forces warned a Turkish invasion threatened to destabilise the area, causing chaos in SDF-controlled prisons and refugee camps packed with battle-hardened jihadists, meaning ISIS terror cells could reform if a 'security vacuum' formed.

The pull-back of troops comes hours after the White House announced Ankara would soon move forward with its objective to create a 'safe zone' in northern Syria and that U.S. soldiers will not support or be involved in it.

But there are fears a Turkish advance in to the volatile region will reverse years of work done to drive extremists out and allow ISIS to regroup.

The US-backed SDF that controls much of the northeast region along Turkey's border, added it 'will not hesitate for a single moment' to defend itself from an expected Turkish invasion and threatened 'all-out war on the entire border'.

A U.S. official said American forces had evacuated two observation posts at Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn in northeast Syria, along the Turkish border. Other U.S. forces in the region were still in position for now, the official added.

Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria confirmed that U.S. forces had withdrawn from areas at the border with Turkey where a threatened Turkish offensive would hurt its war against ISIS and roll back five years of security achievements.

US military vehicles were seen driving northwards in northern Syria, ahead of an anticipated Turkish invasion of the region that the Kurds say will overturn five years of achievements in the battle against ISIS

A video posted by a Kurdish news agency showed a convoy of American armored vehicles apparently heading away from the border area of Tal Abyad.

Pictures also showed abandoned checkpoints in Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn after U.S. troops evacuated the border towns.

Erdogan spoke hours after the White House said U.S. forces in northeastern Syria will move aside and clear the way for an expected Turkish assault - essentially abandoning Kurdish fighters who fought alongside American forces in the years-long battle to defeat ISIS.

In a major shift in U.S. policy, the White House released a statement late on Sunday, saying President Trump spoke with Erogdan by telephone to discuss the plans and the U.S. will remove all of its forces from the 'immediate area'.

The U.S. informed the commander of the Kurdish-led SDF forces in Syria on Monday morning that U.S. forces will not defend them from Turkish attacks anywhere, according to a source.

'Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operating into Northern Syria,' the U.S. statement reads.

'The Unites States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial ''Caliphate,'' will no longer be in the immediate area.'

The White House also confirmed that Turkey plans to take into custody all ISIS fighters captured over the past two years that European powers have refused to take in.

'The United States Government has pressed France, Germany, and other European nations, from which many captured ISIS fighters came, to take them back, but they did not want them and refused.'

'The United States will not hold them for what could be many years and great cost to the United States taxpayer. Turkey will now be responsible for all ISIS fighters in the area capture over the past two years in the wake of the defeat of the territorial ''Caliphate'' by the United States.'

KURDS IN THE CROSSHAIRS AS SYRIAN CIVIL WAR AND TURKEY'S INTERNAL STRIFE COLLIDE The move to pull U.S. troops out of Syria throws one of Middle East's minority ethnic groups into the center of world attention. The Kurds have become a key U.S. ally since the 1991 Gulf War and in Syria have been key to the fight against ISIS. But they are also a group locked in domestic strife in Turkey, where they are the country's largest single minority. Kurds have recorded in Middle Eastern history for as much as 5,000 years, although it was only by the early Muslim period - 800AD - that a defined ethnic group emerged, made up of Iranian tribes with a language related to Persian and kingdoms in modern day Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Armenia and further afield, including what is now Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen and North Africa as far west as Tunisia. But as the Ottoman Empire progressively fell apart, its ethnic groups began to coalesce to demand their own nation-states, among them the Kurds whose first nationalist movement emerged in the 1880s in the form of an uprising in Van, now in Turkey. Concentrated geographically in what is now northern Iraq, far northern Syria, western Iran and most of all in eastern Turkey, calls emerged for a Kurdistan as the western powers - the UK, France and the U.S. - redrew the Middle East's boundaries from 1918 but no united Kurdistan featured in the final map. Instead Turkey was set up with a substantial Kurdish minority in its east, and Iraq in its north, with Syria having a smaller one. In Turkey there were running rebellions and attempts to set up smaller Kurdistans - and by 1980, the ethnic rift had become toxic, with the Kurdish language banned, and in response the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK, became a violent rebel group. Syrian Kurds gather around a U.S. armoured vehicle during a demonstration against Turkish threats next to a US-led international coalition base on the outskirts of Ras al-Ain town in Syria's Hasakeh province near the Turkish Since then it has been a running sore in Turkish life, with a cycle of violence and repression in Kurdish areas. In Iraq, the Kurds became the sworn enemy of Saddam Hussein, because they were seen as disloyal to his regime. They were gassed in the 1980s and in 1991, when the Gulf War ended with Saddam still in power, he started a vicious repression which caused a huge refugee crisis. After the Iraq War in 2003, Iraqi Kurdistan became largely self-governing - and when Syria exploded into a civil war, a template for its Kurdish minority. The small Kurdish section of Syria has since 2014 become essentially self-governing, with backing from the U.S. But in Turkey, that has enraged the Edrogan government, who see a self-governing Syrian Kurdistan's existence as helping the PKK at the least, and possibly even being a front for the group. The U.S. presence which at first backed up Kurdish groups fighting ISIS then turned to keeping the peace between those groups and Turkish forces on the border, and Turkish backed forces in the north-west of Syria. Now the Kurds in Syria face the possibility that they too will become part of the Kurds' tragic history of repression. Advertisement

Ankara said its planned 'safe zone' in northern Syria could allow up to two million Syrian refugees to return.

The safe zone 'will serve two purposes: secure Turkey's borders by eliminating terrorist elements and allow refugees to return to their homes,' Kalin said.

He said Turkey had 'no interest in occupation or changing demographics.'

There are over 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, the highest number in the world, which has become an increasing source of tension in the country.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organisation that reports on the war, said U.S. forces had withdrawn from an area between the towns of Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn.

The SDF, led by the Kurdish YPG militia, said the Turkish invasion 'will have a great negative impact' on the war against ISIS.

It said in a statement: 'Despite our efforts to avoid any military escalation with Turkey and the flexibility we have shown to move forward in establishing a mechanism for the security of the borders ...the American forces did not fulfill their commitments and withdrew their forces from the border areas with Turkey.

'Turkey is now preparing for an invasion operation of northern and eastern Syria,' added the SDF, which with U.S. backing in recent years defeated Islamic State, across much of northern and eastern Syria.

The Turkish military operation 'will have a great negative impact on our war against the Daesh organisation and will destroy everything that has been achieved with regards to stability during the last years,' it added.

In a statement the SDF said: 'The American forces did not abide by their commitments and withdrew their forces along the border with Turkey.

Asked about the White House comments, Erdogan said that both Turkey and the U.S. were working separately to see 'what steps can be taken' so that foreign fighters in prison can be repatriated.

'This is being worked on,' he said.

More than 1,000 U.S. troops are currently deployed in northeastern Syria but will no longer be present during the invasions.

The U.S. soldiers work closely with the Kurdish YPG, which leads the Syrian Democratic Forces in the regions.

Turkey is highly likely to wait until U.S. soldiers have withdrawn from northern Syria before launching an offensive, a senior Turkish official said.

He added that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the planned area of operations could take one week and that Ankara was highly likely to wait for this in order to avoid 'any accident'.