Pentagon: US in Syria “for the long haul;” hails Peshmerga in “Operation Viking Hammer”

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan24) – Michael Mulroy, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense, affirmed on Monday that the US does “expect to be” in Syria “for the long haul.”

Citing the Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, Amb. James Jeffrey, Mulroy said that the US was “not in a bad situation” in Syria.

He explained that by adding, “We have a very capable partner,” referring to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF.)

The territory controlled by the SDF contains “a lot of the oil resources and the arable land for agriculture,” Mulroy continued, “and we are there with them.”

Mulroy also praised the role of Kurdish forces in “Operation Viking Hammer,” a little-known military operation, carried out by the Peshmerga and a small group of special US forces, in the earliest stages of the 2003 Iraq war.

The objective of “Operation Viking Hammer” was to destroy Ansar al-Islam, which consisted of Arab and Kurdish veterans of the war in Afghanistan and which, after September 2001, established a base around Halabja.

Once that was accomplished, the Peshmerga could become the “northern front against Saddam,” as Mulroy described those events, without fearing an attack from their rear by the terrorist group.

Mulroy spoke at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), as it announced the publication of an important new study about US policy in Syria. Its title—“Solving the Syrian Rubik’s Cube” reflects the difficulties involved. There are no good or easy choices.

Nicholas Heras, one of the study’s co-authors, spoke with Kurdistan 24. He explained that of the six scenarios considered in the report, “The option that we supported is that the United States should continue to maintain a presence in over one-third of the country” and “should invest more, both in terms of financial resources and personnel to stabilize” that region of Syria.