A detachment of U.S Marines arrived in Syria outside the ISIS de-facto capital of Raqqa, a U.S. defense official confirmed Wednesday to Fox News. The U.S. is authorized to have up to 500 troops in Syria. Before the Marines arrived, roughly 300 U.S. special operations personnel were supporting local Syrian forces there. The Washington Post was first to report on the deployment of Marines. Separate defense officials told the newspaper the group of Marines are working to establish an outpost from which they can fire artillery guns in support of the fight to take back Raqqa from ISIS.

Source: Fox News March 08, 2017 22:54 UTC