According to the media outlet, the new US military base is located in al-Tanak oilfield, which is controlled by the Kurdish militia, and American troops have dispatched more equipment to the Syrian army’s defense lines – from the town of Khasham in southeastern Deir ez-Zor to the city of Hosseinieh, northeast of the region.
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Earlier in the day, the White House reiterated President Trump’s resolve to withdraw US forces from Syria as soon as possible following French President Emmanuel Macron’s remark about convincing his American counterpart to maintain a US presence in the war-torn country for a long time.
“The US mission has not changed – the president has been clear he wants US forces to come home as quickly as possible. We are determined to completely crush [Daesh] and create the conditions that will prevent its return. In addition we expect our regional allies and partners to take greater responsibility both militarily and financially for securing the region,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
On April 14, the United States, the UK and France carried out coordinated airstrikes against Syria in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack by the government of Bashar al-Assad in the city of Douma in Eastern Ghouta. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the three countries fired over 100 missiles, most of which were intercepted by the Syrian Air Defenses. Damascus dismissed the attack as a “brutal, barbaric aggression,” highlighting that the country’s determination to “fight and crush terrorism in every inch” would only increase after the trilateral strikes.
Since 2014, the US-led international coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what it called Daesh targets in Syria without a UN mandate or Damascus’s consent. The Assad government has consistently denounced the US military presence in the country as a “violation” of national sovereignty.