White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday that the US would be deploying "less than 50" Special Operations forces, who will be sent to Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria. The American troops will, according to what White Hose claims, help local Kurdish and Arab forces fighting ISIL with logistics.
The Special Ops troops will first be deployed to northern Syria to help coordinate local ground forces and US-led coalition efforts to fight ISIL, the senior administration official claimed, CNN reported.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest rejected criticism that the small Special Ops force would not be sufficient, noting that they are an "important force multiplier anywhere around the world they are deployed."
"The President does expect that they can have an impact in intensifying our strategy for building the capacity of local forces inside of Syria for taking the fight on the ground to ISIL in their own country," Earnest said. "That has been the core element of the military component of our strategy from the beginning: building the capacity of local forces on the ground."
The planned deployment, along with the US decision this week to include Iran in diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, represents the biggest change in the United States' Syria policy since it began a bombing campaign against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levent targets there in September 2014.
The decision by Obama, deeply averse to committing troops to unpopular wars in the Middle East, would mark the first sustained US troop presence in Syria and raise the risk of American casualties, although White House spokesman stressed the forces were not meant to engage in front-line combat.