US must prevent Syria from becoming 'terrorist enclave,' Blinken says

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WASHINGTON -- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a congressional panel Wednesday the United States needs to "do everything possible to avoid" the scenario where Syria becomes a "terrorist enclave."

The country's top diplomat gave the remarks while testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021.

Asked by Congressman Keith Self, Republican from Texas, whether he expected Syria to "descend into a terrorist enclave," Blinken said the administration of President Joe Biden would "do everything possible to avoid" that from happening.

The United States is relying on its longtime partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led armed faction among several rebel groups in Syria, to prevent a possible resurgence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The SDF, however, has been regarded by Turkiye, a US ally within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as a terrorist extension of the Kurdish insurgency within Turkiye.

The trilateral dynamism among Washington, Ankara and the SDF is thus adding another twist in the current situation in Syria that's already fraught with uncertainties following the ousting of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

SDF fighters would soon retreat from their stronghold of Manbij, a city in northern Syria, after reaching a US-mediated ceasefire agreement with the Turkiye-backed Syrian National Army, SDF's general commander, Mazloum Abdi, said Tuesday in a post on X.

"There's a number of stakeholders in the region. We continue to work with our Turkish counterparts to urge for any de-escalation or confrontation in that region," Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary for the US Defense Department, said Wednesday at a news briefing.

Singh said the Pentagon stays focused on the mission of collaborating with the SDF to counter ISIS, and now assesses that the SDF "is not operating in the Manbij area ... but I'm just not going to get into more details about that area."

Blinken was scheduled later Wednesday to depart for a two-country trip to the Middle East, which will bring him to Jordan and Turkiye.

While in Ankara, the Turkish capital city, Blinken will "discuss ongoing bilateral cooperation on shared priorities from counterterrorism to regional stability," read a press release from the State Department.