Pentagon Says U.S. Will Not Retaliate for Turkey in Syria
Pentagon Says U.S. Will Not Retaliate for Turkey in Syria by Jack Detsch - Al-Monitor
The US administration has ruled out retaliatory airstrikes in Syria after at least 34 Turkish troops were killed in an attack last week, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said today.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, the US military’s top officer, said today that the United States "doesn't have clear, unambiguous intelligence on who was flying which planes." But the deadly strikes took place at night, and Al-Monitor’s Amberin Zaman reported on Sunday that only Russian pilots have the capability to fly in Syrian airspace after dark.
Esper and Milley’s comments appeared to further steer the US administration away from a possible military response in Syria, even after President Donald Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-Sc., called for an immediate no-fly zone over Idlib on Thursday. Graham spent hours with Trump on Friday at a rally in his home state…