About 400 US Marines to leave Syria after Raqqah operation

The US-led coalition, which has purportedly been fighting Daesh, says it is to pull more than 400 American Marines out of Syria, where they helped Kurdish militants capture the northern city of Raqqah from the Takfiri terror group.

“With the city captured and ISIS (Daesh) on the run, the unit has been ordered home. Its replacements have been called off,” the US Brigadier General Jonathan Braga, the director of operations for the coalition, said in the statement.

Last month, the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Damascus terrorist group backed by the United States, took control of Raqqah, which had served as Daesh’s main stronghold in Syria since 2014.

The Syrian government, however, rejected claims by the SDF and its foreign sponsors that Raqqah has been “liberated.”

Information Minister Mohammad Ramez Tardjaman said in late October that no land is considered liberated in the country unless national army forces regain control of it and raise the Syrian flag atop its buildings.

The US and a coalition of its allies have been bombing what they call terrorist positions in Syria since 2014 without the consent of the Damascus government. The aerial assaults have claimed many civilian lives and, on numerous occasions, hampered Syrian army raids against terrorists.

In October, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said the US-led coalition is trying to destroy the Arab country and prolong the armed conflict there.

He added that the US-backed militiamen are fighting Syrian army forces to gain control over the oil-rich areas of the country.

SS