U.S. Marines deployed in Syria, Kurds say

U.S. Marines in al Qaim in western Iraq near the Syrian border. Photo: AFP

QAMISHLO, Syrian Kurdistan,— A U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish coalition says the U.S. has landed infantry behind Islamic State lines to spearhead an assault on the town of Tabqa.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces SDF say the U.S. has airlifted several Marines and SDF fighters by helicopter into Islamic State-held territory, capturing four villages, and cutting the main artery running between the extremists’ de facto capital, Raqqa, and the western countryside.

It was not immediately possible to confirm the deployment with U.S. commanders.

The group said in a statement on social media Wednesday that the operation was in preparation for an assault on Tabqa, an IS redoubt 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of Raqqa.

The activist-run group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said 500 U.S. and Syrian Kurdish forces were deployed in the operation Wednesday morning. The group relies on local contacts to smuggle information out of IS territory.

A US defense official said on last Wednesday up to 1,000 additional US troops could deploy to Syrian Kurdistan (northern Syria) under provisional plans drawn up by the Pentagon.

U.S regards the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD and its powerful military wing YPG of Syrian Kurdistan, as key ally against Islamic State and the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and has provided them with arms, air support as well as the military advisers. The Kurdish militia has seized swathes of Syria from IS.

Syrian Kurdistan’s ruling PYD has established three autonomous zones, or Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016 Syria’s Kurds declared a federal region in Syrian Kurdistan. On Dec. 30, 2016 Syrian Kurds approved a blueprint for a system of federal government in Syrian Kurdistan, reaffirming their plans for autonomy in areas they have controlled during the civil war.