Trump says US should stay out of fighting in Syria as opposition forces gain
Associated PressWASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. military should stay out of the fast-escalating conflict in Syria, where a dramatic rebel offensive reached the capital and threatened the rule of Syria’s Russian- and Iranian-allied president. Sullivan said the U.S. would keep acting as necessary to keep the Islamic State — a violently anti-Western extremist group not known to be involved in the offensive but with sleeper cells in Syria’s deserts — from exploiting openings presented by the fighting. The Biden administration said the ease of Syrian opposition forces’ capture of government-held cities demonstrates how Russia’s war in Ukraine and Iran’s and Iranian militias’ fight against Israel in Gaza and Lebanon have diminished them. Gen. Bryan Fenton, head of U.S. Special Operations Command, said he would not want to speculate on how the upheaval in Syria would affect the U.S. military’s footprint in the country.