Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said there were 2,000 troops in Syria, as opposed to the 900 previously reported for months, according to a Thursday press conference.
Ryder said that the 1,100 additional troops were “temporary rotational forces,” and claimed that he had been unaware of the information up until that point. The news comes after the toppling of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by Islamic fundamentalist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which plunged the region into uncertainty as various rebel groups, including those supported militarily by the U.S., vie for control.
“I don’t have a specific date to provide … but my understanding is it’s been for a while, so clearly, before the fall of the Assad regime,” Ryder said during the press conference. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Biden DOD Sued After Stonewalling Records Request Into ‘Radical’ General’s…
