Free Republic

A large convoy of U.S. military personnel headed into Syria on Thursday along with hundreds of troops some 24 hours after President Joe Biden took office and took on his commander-in-chief role, foreign media reported. Citing Syrian state news agency SANA, i24 News reported that a convoy of about 40 trucks and armored vehicles “entered northeastern Syria” on Thursday supported by helicopters. The convoy entered the country from Iraq via the al-Waleed crossing “....

Defense Secretary James Mattis revealed Tuesday that U.S. forces nearly bombed Russians fighting on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sometime in the past week, but a call with Moscow's own armed forces defused the situation. Mattis said he believed Russian military officials when they said they were not giving orders to private Russian citizens battling the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and rebel groups as part of a coalition of pro-Syrian government militias. Following an incident last month, in which the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS killed a large number of these pro-Assad fighters, including Russians, Mattis said another clash...

The American military is warning residents of ISIS’s Syrian capital to leave the city—suggesting that an offensive on Raqqa was imminent, two Pentagon officials told the Daily Beast. In the past day, residents of Raqqa have posted photos of the warnings on Twitter, saying they were airdropped on leaflets by the U.S.-led coalition. The defense officials were the first to confirm that the coalition had indeed issued the warnings.

The United States said on Saturday it would keep F-16 fighters and Patriot missiles in Jordan at Amman's request, and Russia bristled at the possibility they could be used to enforce a no-fly zone inside Syria. Washington, which has long called for President Bashar al-Assad to step down, pledged military support to Syrian rebels this week, citing what it said was the Syrian military's use of chemical weapons - an allegation Damascus has denied. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has approved a Jordanian request for American F-16s and Patriot missiles to remain in the Western-backed kingdom after a joint military exercise...