By: Andrew deGrandpre, Michelle Tan and Shawn Snow
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is developing proposals for sending an unspecified number of American military personnel into Syria, conventional ground forces who would augment the 500 combat advisers already there coordinating efforts to destroy the Islamic State.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is developing proposals for sending an unspecified number of American military personnel into Syria, conventional ground forces who would augment the 500 combat advisers already there coordinating efforts to destroy the Islamic State.
First reported Wednesday by CNN, any such deployment would have to be approved by President Donald Trump. However, the commander in chief has directed military leaders to fast track plans for defeating the terror group and, according to White House documents leaked to the media late last month, he has expressed a willingness to expand the United States' presence in war-torn Syria.
Defense Department officials would neither confirm nor deny the report.
"We are in the process of conducting our 30-day review of the strategy to defeat ISIS as directed by the president," said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. ISIS is another name for the Islamic State. "We are considering a number of measures to accelerate the campaign as part of that review, but no decisions have been made."
A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Islamic State campaign in Syria and neighboring Iraq, told Military Times that no deployment announcements are imminent.
However, multiple U.S. Army sources indicated that about two thousand soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team soon may bolster other Army elements already in the region. Currently, about 1,800 paratroopers from the 2nd BCT are in Iraq participating in the U.S. military's train-and-advise mission. The 82nd Airborne Division is based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
Citing an unidentified U.S. defense official, CNN indicated additional deployments could happen within weeks.
Read the full story at MilitaryTimes