President Trump has instructed the U.S. military to prepare for a withdrawal from Syria, but has agreed not to pull the roughly 2,000 troops out of the country until the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is defeated, according to multiple reports.
A senior administration official told NBC News that Trump, in a Tuesday meeting with top national security officials, reluctantly agreed to keep U.S. troops in the war-torn country for an undecided period of time in order to ensure the destruction of the terror group.
“He wasn’t thrilled about it, to say the least,” the official told NBC.
The Washington Post also reported that Trump said U.S. troops could still be kept in the country to train local forces. This would be to ensure ISIS does not move back into areas already liberated from the terrorist group.