U.S. Says 2,000 Troops Are in Syria, a Fourfold Increase<br />6, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — About 2,000 American troops are in Syria fighting the Islamic State, a Pentagon spokesman said on Wednesday, almost<br />four times the total previously disclosed as the Trump administration changes how troop numbers are publicly counted.<br />Pentagon said that The campaign to defeat ISIS is now in a new phase in Iraq and Syria,<br />The 1,500 or so previously undisclosed troops in Syria include traditional combat forces like infantry, artillery<br />and forward air controllers trained to call in airstrikes, as well as support personnel, said Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman.<br />Mr. Mattis directed the Pentagon months ago to revise how it accounts for deployed personnel fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.<br />But Colonel Manning said the number of troops in Syria "are generally trending downward," and noted<br />that an artillery battalion of 400 Marines deployed near Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate, had recently returned to the United States.
