President Donald Trump's administration scrapped plans by former President Barack Obama to arm Kurdish militants in northern Syria in a push to recapture the city of Raqqa from the Islamic State terror group, US media reported.
After being handed the plan on January 17, Trump’s team decided it was so careful that it would likely fail, and threw it out, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing sources.
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have not devised an alternate plan, it added.
According to the newspaper, the Obama administration had for years relied on Turkey to send troops or militants into Raqqa, but President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan focused on fighting Syrian Kurds, which it sees as a greater threat than the Islamic State. By the fall of 2016, after two years of tension between Obama and Erdoğan because of different priorities, a U.S.-backed offensive using Kurdish forces to recapture Raqqa was finally within sight, and Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, asked for authorization to arm them for a push into the city.
"ERDOĞAN'S GHOSTS"
According to the sources, the proposal divided the Obama White House. Then-Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter backed the plan, but others worried that it would deepen the rift with Ankara. Among the biggest skeptics was Susan E. Rice, Obama’s national security adviser. When she asked Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whether an immediate decision was needed, the general said he was still evaluating whether Turkey was serious about an offer to provide its own forces to take Raqqa instead of the Kurds.
For two years inside the Pentagon, Turkey’s promises of sending militants and later its own troops were viewed with deep skepticism and derisively dubbed “Erdoğan’s ghosts” or the “unicorn” army, according to current and former defense officials. Carter and other defense officials worried that Dunford’s response gave the White House another reason to delay a decision. By late 2016, Dunford had concluded that the Turks would not produce the forces to retake Raqqa. US administration officials delayed making a decision amid fears it would alienate Ankara, it added.
ARMORED VEHICLES WERE DELIVERED
Three weeks before Trump's January 20 inauguration, Votel and Dunford formally requested armored vehicles, anti-tank weapons, machine guns and mine-clearing equipment for the Kurds and stressed that delaying the delivery could drag the Raqqa operation out for another year.
Kurdish militants dominate the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a collective that also includes the Syrian Arab Coalition, which is made up of militants predominantly from local Arab areas.
US-supplied armored vehicles were delivered to Syrian militants on Tuesday, but Col. John Dorrian said they were transferred to the Syrian Arab Coalition, not the SDF. Another of the SDF's Kurdish components, the Popular Defense Units (YPG) also denied receiving arms from the US-led coalition.
A NEW PLAN
According to the Washington Post, Trump and his top advisers could decide to increase coordination with Russia and even Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to seize Raqqa. Or he could ultimately conclude, as Obama did, that arming the Kurds represents the best of several bad options.
"The policy dilemmas that Obama and his team spent more than seven months deliberating will be decided over the course of the next 30 days in a review led by Mattis and the Pentagon" it added.
