US concedes it has double the number of troops in Syria as Biden prepares to send officials to Damascus

By Alex Marquardt, Jennifer Hansler, Natasha Bertrand, Haley Britzky and Michael Conte, CNN

(CNN) — The Pentagon announced the US currently has “approximately 2,000” troops in Syria, more than double the previously disclosed number of 900, a Defense Department spokesperson said at a press briefing on Thursday.

“There are diplomatic and operational security considerations oftentimes with our deployments and some of those numbers, and [that is] certainly the case here,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, who said that the 2,000 troops are all in Syria to fight ISIS.

“As I understand it, and as it was explained to me, these additional forces are considered temporary rotational forces that deploy to meet shifting mission requirements, whereas the core 900 deployers are on longer term deployments,” Ryder said on Thursday.

On the same day, CNN learned the Biden administration is naming former ambassador and Syria envoy Daniel Rubinstein to lead the American efforts on Syria in their final weeks in office, a US official said. He is expected to join a delegation of senior US officials visiting Damascus in the coming days, the first high-level American visit since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad.

Rubinstein is expected to be joined by Barbara Leaf, the assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, and Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, two US officials said. Carstens has been in neighboring Lebanon and Jordan in the past two weeks leading the search for American journalist Austin Tice, who was detained in Syria over 12 years ago.

The US troops are focused on efforts to counter ISIS, one of the key issues confronting the international community in the wake of the Assad regime collapse. US officials have repeatedly stressed that the terrorist group must not be able to use the transition in Syria to rebuild.

The US delegation is expected to press the interim government on the set of principles outlined in Aqaba last weekend – expectations for a transition and new Syrian government related to human rights, combatting terrorism and destruction of chemical weapons, one of the officials said.

They are also expected to discuss efforts to find Tice. These topics have been the focus of the US direct engagement with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed on Saturday. HTS is a US designated terrorist group.

Pushed by CNN on why the Pentagon had not previously disclosed the accurate number of US forces in Syria, Ryder denied there was any attempt to obfuscate the real number and said he only learned of the true number on Thursday before his briefing.

“Part of the explanation is the sensitivity from a diplomatic and operation security standpoint,” Ryder added, refusing to further detail the diplomatic considerations.

“I’m not going to get into diplomatic discussions,” said Ryder. “But, you know, there’s just diplomatic considerations.”

Ryder said he learned the originally disclosed number was incorrect because he “got word of it recently, as our team was looking at this … and I asked for more information on this, recognizing that if the numbers are not what we briefed, let’s find out what the actual numbers are and go from there.”

Asked if Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was aware of the number of US troops in Syria, Ryder said he is “confident that the secretary is tracking US forces deployed around the world,” but that Austin had not spoken with the commander of US Central Command, Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, who oversees US forces in the region, about this issue.

Ryder also said he wasn’t “tracking any adjustments” to that number of US troops in Syria.

The US has had forces in Syria to fight ISIS since 2014, working with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to combat the terrorist group.

However, the rapid fall of Assad’s regime has led to fears of a power vacuum that could re-empower ISIS, which has not held territory in Syria since 2019.

Further complicating the conflict, though the US still characterizes the SDF as “an important partner,” Turkey has threatened to destroy the group, which is made up of fighters from a group known as the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey.

The US has carried out dozens of airstrikes on ISIS targets in recent days, as the SDF has said they have had to halt anti-ISIS operations amid recent attacks by Turkish-backed militants.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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