Turkey’s invasion of Syria puts Islamic State fight on hold at a critical time

By Liz Sly and Missy Ryan
Oct. 11, 2019 at 10:01 p.m. EDT

BEIRUT — The Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria has forced the U.S. military and its Syrian Kurdish allies to significantly curtail their shared military operations against the Islamic State at a critical moment in the ongoing fight to stamp out the group’s residual presence, ­creating an opening for the militants’ comeback, U.S. and Kurdish officials say.

Hundreds of fighters with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been relocated to the front lines with Turkey and away from areas where the anti-Islamic State operations were focused, drawing manpower and resources away from the daily raids and missions that have thwarted an Islamic State revival.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said on Friday that the United States had not abandoned its Kurdish allies and that the 1,000 troops deployed there would continue hunting down the remnants of the Islamic State. The militant group lost territorial control of its self-proclaimed caliphate earlier this year but is making strenuous efforts to resuscitate its organizational structures across Syria and Iraq.

“We will continue to work with the 80 members of the Defeat-ISIS coalition and the Syrian Democratic Forces to ensure the defeat of ISIS,” he said, using the acronym for the Islamic State.

U.S. officials privately acknowledged, however, that the tempo of operations by the Kurds, Washington’s main partner in Syria, against the Islamic State has “significantly tapered off” since the Turkish offensive began, according to one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

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