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President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States should avoid engaging militarily in Syria amid an Opposition offensive that has reached the capital’s suburbs, declaring in a social media post, “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT.”
Trump’s first extensive comments on the dramatic rebel push came while he was in Paris for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. He argued that Syrian President Bashar Assad did not deserve U.S. support to stay in power.
Assad’s Government has been propped up by the Russian and Iranian military, along with Hezbollah and other Iranian-allied militias, in a now 13-year-old war against Opposition groups seeking his overthrow. The war, which began as a mostly peaceful uprising in 2011 against the Assad family’s rule, has killed a half-million people, fractured Syria and drawn in a more than a half-dozen foreign militaries and militias.
The insurgents are led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which the United States has designated as a terrorist group and says has links to al-Qaida, although the group has since broken ties with al-Qaida.” The insurgents have met little resistance so far from the Syrian Army. (Time)
