Trump claims IS prisoners deliberately being released to make him look bad

President Donald Trump says members of the Islamic State group who were being held in prisons by Kurdish fighters in Syria have been deliberately released in an effort to make him look bad.

But senior US officials are casting doubt on those claims. Those officials say some Syrian Kurdish forces have moved north to fight Turkish troops who launched an attack across the border against the Kurds. The US officials say other Kurds have stayed to guard the detention centers that hold thousands of IS militants.

The officials say the US doesn’t have good on-the-ground information about what’s going on in some of the detention centers as American forces pull back from the border region. The officials say they believe only a small number of detainees have escaped.

These officials aren’t authorized to public discuss ongoing operations in Syria and are speaking on condition of anonymity.

— AP