WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump says the roughly 1,000 U.S. troops he has ordered to leave Syria will remain in the Middle East to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State threat.
The president released a written statement Monday announcing his authorization of economic sanctions on Turkey. In the statement, Trump made clear that the withdrawing troops will leave Syria entirely.
Trump said the troops will, "redeploy and remain in the region."
The president went on to describe their mission as "monitoring the situation" and preventing a "repeat of 2014," when ISIS fighters, who had organized in Syria as a fighting force, swept into neighboring Iraq and took control of Iraq's north and west.
Trump confirmed that a small number of U.S. troops at a base in southern Syria will remain there.
Trump confirmed that he is putting new sanctions on Turkey, and halting trade negotiations along with raising steel tariffs in an effort to pressure Ankara to stop its military offensive in Syria against Kurdish forces that it views as a terrorist threat.
Trump said Monday that he soon will sign an executive order permitting sanctions to be imposed on current and former Turkish officials.
Before the invasion, Trump ordered a couple dozen U.S. troops out of harm's way. Critics say Trump's decision gave Turkey a green light to go against the Kurds, who had helped the United States battle Islamic State militants.
U.N. officials say the latest fighting in northeast Syria is compounding an already dire humanitarian situation.
According to U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric, at least 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the Turkish offensive began on October 9.
That's mostly from violence around the towns of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain.
Dujarric told reporters Monday that the U.N. World Food Program has so far provided immediate food assistance to more than 70,000 people fleeing towns as the fighting continues.
He said "most of the displaced are staying with relatives or host communities, but increasing numbers are arriving at collective shelters in the area."
Northeast Syria was already facing a humanitarian crisis before the Turkish offensive, with 1.8 million of the 3 million women, children and men in the region in need of assistance, "including over 910,000 in acute need," Dujarric said.
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He said there are also "heightened concerns" for vulnerable people in camps for the displaced, including al-Hol. That camp holds some 68,000 people who fled the last battlefields of the Islamic State group — 94% of them women and children.
Syrian state media says government forces have entered the northern Kurdish-held town of Manbij, hours after Turkey-backed opposition fighters announced that they are advancing on the city. SANA news agency gave no further details.
Monday's move was expected, coming a day after Syrian Kurdish militias struck an alliance with government forces to help fend off the Turkish offensive.
Manbij houses U.S. troops, and an American official says troops are still in the flashpoint city, preparing to leave.
The U.S. and the Syrian Kurds had worked together to fight the Islamic State group since 2014, but the U.S. recently ordered American troops in northern Syria to step aside, clearing the way for Turkey's invasion.
Ankara considers these Syrian Kurdish fighters as terrorists because of their links to outlawed Kurdish groups in Turkey.
The military action by Ankara sets up a potential clash between Turkey and Syria and raises the specter of a resurgent Islamic State group.
Turkey's Foreign Ministry says it "condemns and rejects" a call by the European Union for member states to stop selling arms to Turkey over its offensive against Syrian Kurdish militias in northern Syria.
In a statement issued Monday, the ministry defended the military offensive, now in its sixth day.