Mattis Links US Pullout from Syria to Political Process

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis linked Friday the pullout of US-led coalition forces from Syria to an agreement on a political process.

Speaking at a meeting of coalition defense ministers at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Mattis said: “As the operations ultimately draw to a close, we must avoid leaving a vacuum in Syria that can be exploited by the (Bashar) Assad regime or its supporters.”

He added that in Syria, “leaving the field before the special envoy Staffan de Mistura achieves success in advancing the Geneva political process we all signed for under the UN security council resolution would be a strategic blunder, undercutting our diplomats and giving the terrorists the opportunity to recover.”

Meanwhile, ISIS terrorists launched a surprise assault as the group’s suicide bombers detonated their explosives in a wave of attacks in Syria’s the Boukamal.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said this “attack is considered the most violent since the organization lost its presence in the Boukamal city and the west banks of Euphrates River” in November 2017.

The monitor said the sound of at least 10 violent explosions were heard from the outskirts of the Boukamal and its vicinity, as 6 ISIS members blew themselves up using explosive belts and 4 others using booby-trapped vehicles against positions of regime forces and their allies, before entering and controlling some parts of the city.

However, sources in Damascus later denied that ISIS militants had taken control of the city.

Separately, Hezbollah reportedly rejected to meet Russian demands to pull out from areas in the countryside of Homs, while Iran seemed to be setting conditions to its withdrawal from southern Syria.

Early this month, Moscow and Tel Aviv held advanced talks concerning southern Syria and agreed to keep Assad forces in the area and to allow their deployment at the border with Israel, in exchange of the withdrawal of Iranian fighters.

The Syrian Observatory reported on Friday that with the expansion of Russian ambitions and the Iranian search for gains in Syria, the gap between both parties is widening on Syrian territory.

Sources confirmed to the monitor that the Russian-Iranian dispute in Syria was on the rise with rising Iranian intransigence in carrying out Russia’s dictates.

“The Observatory received information that the command of the Russian Forces asked the Lebanese Hezbollah to withdraw its members and forces from al-Dabaa airbase and the bases located in the western and southwestern countryside of Homs,” but Hezbollah has so far failed to do so, it said.

Iran has not changed the size of its forces in Syria, estimated at 32,000 non-Syrian fighters.

The Observatory said that since the start of the Syrian revolution in March 2011 until May 2018, around 7,806 non-Syrians and mostly Shi’ites who fought under the banner of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and their militias were killed in Syria. They include Afghans, Iraqis and Asians.

In addition, around 1,649 Hezbollah fighters were killed during the war across the country.

Source: Mattis Links US Pullout from Syria to Political Process | Asharq AL-awsat