EXCLUSIVE: America’s top ally in Syria warns ISIS is resurging

CNN — America’s top ally in the fight against ISIS, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, warned Friday that the terrorist group was resurging in Syria and asked for increased US support for his troops as they seek to keep ISIS from reestablishing itself. Asked if he agreed with a recent Pentagon inspector general report that said ISIS was resurging in Syria after President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw about half the US troops from the country, Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi, the Syrian Democratic Forces commander, told CNN that “this is our opinion as well.” Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces, attends a meeting with other commanders and representatives of the US-led coalition fighting ISIS. Speaking through an interpreter, Mazloum said ISIS’ new insurgency was enabled because the group had some freedom of movement in areas bordering the region of Syria that the Syrian Democratic Forces control, including across the border in Iraq and places west of the Euphrates River that are ostensibly controlled by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which the SDF has stayed independent of. “If Americans are not being seen as obeying their commitments,” he said, it would be “not just harmful for us but harmful for the Americans as well.” Detaining ISIS fighters One area of particular concern for both the commander and US officials is the ability of the Syrian Democratic Forces to continue to guard tens of thousands of detained ISIS fighters and ISIS family members, including more than 2,000 foreign terrorist fighters from some 50 countries in makeshift camps and detention facilities. So there’s still work to be done, and we estimate some 50-60,000 local security forces in total would need to be trained to hold that ground, and we’re probably some 50% of the way through.” Last week the US-led coalition said that in the last four months its “SDF partners detained more than 225 Daesh fighters,” in Syria, using an Arabic name for ISIS.