Top US general not consulted before Trump’s Syria pullout decision

The top general overseeing US military actions in the Middle East says US President Donald Trump did not consult him ahead of the decision to pull US troops from Syria.

Trump last month claimed the Islamic State group had been defeated in Syria and said all US troops were “coming back now,” upending years of doctrine in Syria.

“I was not aware of the specific announcement. Certainly we were aware that he had expressed a desire and intent in the past to depart Syria,” US Central Command head General Joseph Votel, who is retiring in the coming weeks, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“I was not consulted,” he adds.

The detail that Trump did not speak to Votel ahead of the momentous decision will likely fuel critics who say the president refuses to listen to experts and instead relies on his gut, or even the counsel of foreign leaders.

Votel says the US withdrawal from Syria will be cautious and deliberate, and notes that IS are still not beaten.

The jihadists retain control of a pocket of about 20 square miles (50 square kilometers) in the Middle Euphrates River Valley in eastern Syria, according to Votel.

He says between 1,000 to 1,500 IS fighters remain in that area, though he notes thousands more have “gone to ground” elsewhere in Syria.

Trump is in an ongoing feud with the US intelligence community, which last week warned IS can quickly rebuild into a cohesive force in any vacuum left in the war-torn country.

— AFP