TIL Desk/World/Washington/ US President Donald Trump has announced he had ended a programme to support rebels fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because it was “massive, dangerous, and wasteful.”
The comments came days after General Tony Thomas, the head of US special operations confirmed that the four-year-old operation was brought to a close but denied the decision was motivated by a desire to placate Russia, which backs the Assad regime.
“The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad…..” Trump tweeted. The missive appeared to be a response to an article by the newspaper published hours earlier and titled “Cooperation with Russia becomes central to Trump strategy in Syria.”
It quoted anonymous officials as saying “the United States and its proxies would concede Assad’s control of most of central and southern Syria” in return for Moscow and its allies steering clear of US coalition operations against the Islamic State group. The United States and Russia agreed on creating de- escalation zones in southern Syria at their first meeting at the G20 in Hamburg earlier this month.