The White House said Saturday that U.S. priorities in Syria now are to ensure the country’s conflict does not encourage a resurgence of the Islamic State militant group or lead to a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
U.S. President Joe Biden and his team are monitoring the “extraordinary events in Syria” are in touch with regional partners, the White House said on Saturday.
“President Biden and his team are closely monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria and staying in constant touch with regional partners,” the White House said in a statement.
Spillover “is a concern,” said national security adviser Jake Sullivan, with particular worry about the so-called Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
In previous phases of Syria’s long-running civil war, “at its worst, we saw the explosion of ISIS onto the scene,” he said at a conference in Simi Valley, California run by the Reagan National Defense Forum.
The main priority is to ensure “that the fighting in Syria not lead to a resurgence of ISIS,” Sullivan said. “We are going to take steps ourselves, directly and working with the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurds, to ensure that does not happen.”
The U.S. has about 900 troops in Syria, including U.S. forces working with Kurdish allies in the opposition-held northeast to prevent any resurgence of the Islamic State group, according to The Associated Press.
Gen. Bryan Fenton, head of U.S. Special Operations Command, told the AP he would not want to speculate on how the upheaval in Syria would affect the U.S. military’s footprint in the country. “It’s still too early to tell,” he said.
What would not change is the focus on disrupting IS operations in Syria and protecting U.S. troops, Fenton said during a panel at the Reagan event.
Rebel forces are in the midst of a lightning offensive and say they have begun to encircle Syria’s capital, Damascus.
Sullivan said the Biden administration is working to ensure allies Israel, Jordan, Iraq and others in the region, “who would potentially face spillover effects from Syria, are strong and secure, and we’re in touch with them every day.”
Washington is also alert to stopping a “humanitarian catastrophe, both in terms of civilians, access to life-saving necessities, and in terms of the protection of religious and ethnic minorities in Syria,” Sullivan said.
“Of course, an event like this happens and ISIS immediately looks to take advantage. We have seen reports of ISIS trying … to reconstitute to a certain extent.”
So the United States will seek to “contain the potential violence and instability,” protect allies and ensure that ISIS not “get new oxygen out of this” that could lead them to threaten US or allies’ interests, Sullivan added.
Sullivan’s remarks come as Washington prepares for a transition of power next month back to former president Donald Trump, who defeated Biden in November’s election.
Trump, who visited Paris on Saturday, warned against US involvement in Syria, saying the country is “a mess” and “not our friend.”
“THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
Sullivan, addressing Trump’s remarks, agreed, saying “the United States is not going to… militarily dive into the middle of a Syrian civil war.”
Some material for this report came from The Associated Press.
