WASHINGTON, December 10. /TASS/. US troops stationed in Syria assisted allied militia units in seizing strategically important positions after the opposition took power in the country, the Washington Post reports.
According to the newspaper’s sources, "the US military, which maintains a force of roughly 800 troops across various locations in eastern Syria, has coordinated and enabled an allied militia to seize strategic territory held for years by Assad and Iran, and encouraged neighboring Iraq to prevent Iranian and Iranian-backed militia forces based there from crossing the border into Syria."
The article says that American military efforts so far have focused on preventing the Islamic State terror group (outlawed in Russia) "from taking advantage of the chaos."
Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said earlier that the US did not plan to increase the number of its troops in Syria.
On November 27, Syria’s armed opposition units launched a large-scale offensive on the positions of government forces in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib. By the evening of December 7, the Syrian president’s opponents seized several large cities, including Aleppo, Hama, Deir ez-Zor, Daraa, and Homs. On December 8, they entered the Syrian capital, Damascus, while the army withdrew from the city. Bashar Assad stepped down as president and left the country.