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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry L" data-source="post: 19212881" data-attributes="member: 260809">In policy shift, Obama to send U.S. special forces to Syria <img src="http://i1.wp.com/www.intifada-palestine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/breaking16.gif?resize=500%2C300" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> [YOUTUBE]CzLpTGSd5S4[/YOUTUBE] WASHINGTON —  <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per" target="_blank">President Obama</a> announced on Friday that he had ordered several dozen Special Operations troops into <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/syria/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" target="_blank">Syria</a>  for the first open-ended mission by United States ground forces in that  country, deepening American involvement in a war he has tried to avoid  for more than four years. While  the deployment was small in scale, it was large in importance for a  president who had refused to commit American ground forces inside <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/syria/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" target="_blank">Syria</a>  beyond quick raids. White House officials said the troops would advise  local forces fighting the Islamic State and not play a direct combat  role, but they left open the possibility of sending more in the future.      The  escalation came just weeks after Russia inserted itself into the  multisided civil war to support President Bashar al-Assad, bombing  opposition forces, including some supported by the United States.  Although not characterized as a response, the dispatch of American  troops further complicates a kaleidoscopic battlefield with varied  forces and sometimes murky allegiances. <img src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/10/31/world/FORCES/FORCES-master675.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> The  troops heading to Syria will number “fewer than 50,” the White House  said, but Pentagon officials said even those numbers would be useful in  coordinating efforts with Kurdish forces. Republicans argued it was too  little and too late to make a meaningful difference, while some  Democrats said it pushed the United States further down a slippery slope  into a hopeless war. The  White House insisted this was not a case of mission creep. “The mission  has not changed,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary.  “These forces,” he added, “do not have a combat mission.” “The  responsibility that they have is not to lead the charge to take a hill,  but rather to offer advice and assistance to those local forces about  the best way they can organize their efforts to take the fight to ISIL  or to take the hill inside of Syria,” he said. But the definition of combat has shifted since the United States last year began taking on the Islamic State, also called <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda_in_mesopotamia/index.html?inline=nyt-org" target="_blank">ISIS</a> or ISIL. In May, Delta Force commandos entered Syria aboard Black Hawk helicopters and V-22 Ospreys and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/world/middleeast/abu-sayyaf-isis-commander-killed-by-us-forces-pentagon-says.html" target="_blank">killed an Islamic State leader </a>and about a dozen militant fighters. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/24/us/joshua-wheeler-killed-in-isis-raid.html" target="_blank">The soldier killed</a> last week was part of a force accompanying Kurdish commandos on a raid to free prisoners held by the Islamic State. In  addition to the Special Operations deployment, Mr. Obama authorized  deploying A-10 and F-15 warplanes to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. The  A-10s are capable of providing close in-air support to fighters on the  ground. The F-15s can carry out a range of air-to-ground combat  missions. </blockquote>

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