President Barack Obama said on Monday that plans to deploy special forces to Syria was to “advise opposition forces fighting self-styled Islamic State (IS)”. He defended the plan, adding that it did not break his promise to avoid “boots on the ground” in the Syrian conflict.
“Keep in mind that we have run special ops already and really this is just an extension of what we are continuing to do,” Obama said on “NBC Nightly News” in his first public comments on the deployment since its announcement on on Friday.
The White House said the troops would be on a mission to “train, advise and assist” and would number fewer than 50.
