The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford rejected the allegations that the United States will be keeping 1,000 troops in Syria and deemed the report inaccurate, The Hill reported.
“A claim reported this evening by a major U.S. newspaper that the U.S. military is developing plans to keep nearly 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria is factually incorrect,” the JCS account tweeted on behalf of Dunford. “There has been no change to the plan announced in February and we continue to implement the President’s direction to draw down U.S. forces to a residual presence.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, which cited Washington officials, the U.S. was planning to keep at least 1,000 troops in the war-torn country, a report that comes only a few months after Donald Trump said he will pull out all troops from Syria.
The remaining troops would be assigned tasks with assisting Kurdish forces battling the terrorist group Islamic State.
The initial announcement by President Trump claiming a full withdrawal from Syria received major backlash and prompted the resignation of then-Defense Secretary James Mattis.
The Trump administration then announced last month that they would be leaving 400 troops in Syria.
Dion Nissenbaum, one of the two authors of the Journal’s report, tweeted Sunday that they “stand by our reporting.”
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