“This is pretty major,” Col. Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition that is fighting ISIL militants in Syria and Iraq, told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday. He said it was the first time U.S. forces have airlifted local fighters into combat in Syria. U.S. officials said the operation inserted Syrian Arab and Kurdish fighters behind ISIL lines west of Raqqa, subjecting the American personnel to a degree of risk previously avoided in Syria. By design, the operation is coinciding with a potentially climactic battle for Mosul, the main ISIL stronghold in Iraq. At a Senate hearing Wednesday, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis told a Senate committee that the Trump strategy was still in “skeleton” form.

Source: National Post March 23, 2017 13:52 UTC