Trump says US should stay out of fighting in Syria as opposition forces gain
President-elect Donald Trump says the U.S. should avoid engaging militarily in Syria, where an opposition offensive is threatening the rule of the country's Russian- and Iran-allied leader
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT," Trump declared on social media.
As world leaders watched the stunning rebel advance, with its potential to alter the balance of power in the Middle East, President Joe Biden's national security adviser separately stressed that the Biden administration had no intention of intervening.
“The United States is not going to ... militarily dive into the middle of a Syrian civil war," Jake Sullivan told an audience in California.
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.
