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US to send more special forces to Syria: Report

This AFP file photo shows American special forces soldiers during an airborne training exercise in Hohenfels, southern Germany on August 26, 2015.

The United States is considering a new plan to "greatly increase" the number of American special forces deployed in Syria, says a new report.

US officials have told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the administration of President Barack Obama is weighing the proposal to accelerate “recent gains against” Daesh (ISIL) terrorists in Syria.

The officials with direct knowledge of the proposal's details refused to disclose the exact increase under consideration, but one of them explained that it would leave the US special operations contingent many times larger than the around 50 troops currently in Syria.

They said the plan also includes an increase in the number of American troops in Iraq.

The new plan in Syria would be separate from a revised US military effort under way to train militants, according to the report.

Last December, the US announced it was deploying a new force of special operations troops to Iraq to conduct raids against Daesh there and in neighboring Syria. The announcement followed another one in October, which said dozens of US special forces would be deployed in Syria- the first US ground troops to be stationed there.

The additional US forces in Syria would be primarily assigned to establishing sites where they would train militants and eventually provide them weapons.

Currently there are dozens of US special operations forces in Syria, who are working closely with a collection of various armed groups that are trying to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The US has long been supplying the militants with ammunition.

US officials claim that Daesh is losing a battle to forces arrayed against it from many sides in Iraq and Syria.

Washington has, under another new plan, begun training new groups of militants in Syria.

"Dozens of people are now being trained," US Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the US-led coalition, said on Friday. "These are individuals as opposed to units."

Separately, the CIA has been running a similar program aimed at pressuring Assad to step down. The CIA-armed militants, however, are now shooting at Pentagon-armed ones in Syria, according to US officials and militant leaders.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. Hundreds of thousands of people have reportedly lost their lives and millions have been displaced as a result of the violence.

The US-led coalition has been pounding purported Daesh positions inside Syria since September 2014, without any authorization from Damascus or the UN. However, they have done little to stop the terrorists' advances in parts of Syria.


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