DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – The Syrian army has discovered weapons made by the U.S. and the Zionist regime left behind by terrorists in the region around Damascus, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
Terrorist groups fighting the Syrian government left many weapons caches behind as they were retreating from the Syrian army; these are now being discovered in sweeping operations being conducted by the Syrian Army.
Earlier in December, Syrian Security Forces discovered another big warehouse loaded with weapons left behind by terrorist groups in Daraa province in the south of the country. It contained numerous rifles, mortars, U.S.-made Tao anti-tank missiles and recon drones.
In another development, Badran Jiakurd, an adviser to the so-called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), a semi-autonomous region, told Sputnik the U.S. is likely to retain control over the Kurdish-populated areas in northeastern Syria by keeping its troops in neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan and reserving the right to intervene if needed,.
"We believe that the withdrawal will take a long time, and there could be a presence of the American military in the Iraqi Kurdistan near the border with northern Syria. This U.S. military presence could be strategic to allow the U.S. air force to intervene when necessary, so that NES would remain under the U.S. control. In our judgment, we think that there is a plan in this direction,” Jiakurd said.
According to the official, after the full victory over the last pocket of the Daesh in Syria’s Dayr al-Zawr is finally announced, "the U.S. strategy, goals, and areas of military deployment in the region would be clearer.”
He said that Kurds did not support the troop withdrawal because such a sudden move would create a power vacuum and lead to terrorists flocking to the area.