War on terror

EXCLUSIVE: America's top ally in Syria warns ISIS is resurging and asks for more US support

America's top ally in the fight against ISIS, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, warned Friday that the terrorist group was resurging in Syria and asked for increased US support for his troops as they seek to keep ISIS from reestablishing itself.
Asked if he agreed with a recent Pentagon inspector general report that said ISIS was resurging in Syria after President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw about half the US troops from the country, Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi, the Syrian Democratic Forces commander, told CNN that "this is our opinion as well."
While US Defense Secretary Mark Esper recently said the terror group was not resurging in Syria, Mazloum told CNN in an exclusive interview that ISIS had prepared for its transformation into an insurgency even before it lost its last territorial holdings in the country.
Speaking through an interpreter, Mazloum said ISIS' new insurgency was enabled because the group had some freedom of movement in areas bordering the region of Syria that the Syrian Democratic Forces control, including across the border in Iraq and places west of the Euphrates River that are ostensibly controlled by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which the SDF has stayed.