US troops are staying in Syria, White House's Finer says

By Jeff Mason

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. troops will be staying in Syria after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad as part of a counter-terrorism mission focused on destroying Islamic State militants, a top White House official said on Tuesday.

"Those troops are there for a very specific and important reason, not as some sort of bargaining chip," U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said in an interview at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York.

U.S. troops "have been there now for the better part of a decade or more to fight ISIS... we are still committed to that mission."

Asked directly whether U.S. troops are staying, Finer said, "Yes."

Islamic State in 2014 swept through large swaths of Syria and Iraq and established an Islamic caliphate before it was driven out by a U.S.-led coalition by 2019.

Syrian rebels seized the capital Damascus unopposed on Sunday after a lightning advance that sent Assad fleeing to Russia after a 13-year civil war and more than five decades of his family's autocratic rule.

But Washington now sees its military presence as a hedge against further instability, even as it remains unclear how Syria's new rulers will view U.S. presence.

Washington still designates as a terrorist organization the Sunni Muslim group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was chief among the rebel forces that ended 50 years of brutal dynastic rule by Assad.

"There has been no formal change in any policies," on such groups, said Finer. "Those designations are not made based on what groups say or what they say their intentions are or they intend to do, it's about actions so we will be watching."

He characterized as "quite constructive" some of what those groups have been saying in recent weeks but said Washington would wait and see if those statements are followed by action to bring about "credible, inclusive governance for Syria."

He said the Biden administration is in contact with members of the incoming team of President-elect Donald Trump and keeping them apprised about Syria.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Trevor Hunnicutt, Editing by Heather Timmons, Franklin Paul and Alistair Bell)

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