The US has offered Russia cooperation in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group* in southwestern Syria controlled by the Syrian authorities, said the US Special Envoy for ATS James Jeffrey.
According to him, south of the Euphrates, the forces of the Syrian authorities are limited by the general attention to Idlib in the north-west of the country, and this allows ISIS* to raise its head in this area.
“A little of Syrian forces remained in the south-west, in the desert of Badia, to deal with the ISIS*. This worries us greatly. We saw that the ISIS* there increases the territorial presence, even attacks the cities and at least for a short time can hold territory. This should stop. We proposed to cooperate with the Russians on this issue”, – Jeffrey said.
At the same time, he claims that in the northeast, controlled by US allies, there are no such problems yet.
“We don’t think that ISIS* was able to seriously use the crisis with COVID to advance in the northeast, although the area around Deir ez-Zor has become, in today’s language, a “hot spot”, and we are closely following this, but we’re sure everything is under control”, – Jeffrey said.
*-banned in Russia