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Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
World
Washington - Asharq Al-Awsat

Pentagon Warns Syria’s Assad against Attacking Washington Allies

Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie - Reuters

The Pentagon on Thursday warned Head of Syrian regime Bashar al-Assad not to carry out an offensive against Kurdish and Arab forces backed by the Washington that control the country’s north-east.

Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, director of the joint staff, said during a press conference on Thursday: "Any interested party in Syria should understand that attacking US Forces or our coalition partners will be a bad policy."

Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White later stated that US is in Syria only to fight ISIS.

She added that the "US did not want to get involved in Syria’s civil war."

Assad told Russian broadcaster RT in an interview that the "only problem left in Syria is the SDF."

Assad said there were only “two options" to deal with SDF.

“The first one: we started now opening doors for negotiations. Because the majority of them are Syrians."

Otherwise, "we’re going to resort... to liberating those areas by force,” he added.

SDF continue to fight against ISIS in part of oil-rich province of Deir Al Zour.

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