News of violent clashes and artillery strikes in Raqqa sieged by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Front come daily. According to Al Jazeera, LINK between June 6 and July 30 the city was targeted by coalition jets 1,215 times while 1,300 strikes were carried out since January and mid-June. The U.S. activity in Syria is growing not only in the air but also on the ground. Yesterday, BuzzFeed correspondent Borzou Daragahi published on his Twitter footages of American armored vehicles more and more often seen in northern Syria.

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Photos by Borzou Daragahi

Moreover, in his article at BuzzFeed, Daragahi notes how large Donald Trump’s interference in the Syrian conflict is compared to the one of Barack Obama’s administration.

With the previous president in office, the U.S. military provided mainly intelligence support aiding Kurdish troops on the ground. Now, the Pentagon started full-scale activity deploying special operation forces, artillery, aviation and fleet.

Besides, Alan Dwyer, a USAID disaster relief specialist, was spotted in Syria. He met with local officials and the representatives of some humanitarian organizations in Ain al-Issa town to the north of Raqqa, which proves the U.S. has a plan what to do with these territories after ISIS is defeated.

Donald Trump and his military advisers decided to shift the country’s foreign policy towards Syria. While Obama aimed at ousting president Bashar Al-Assad and actively supported the opposition radical groups, the current U.S. president seems to have bet on the Kurds and intends to create a autonomous region loyal to Washington with no Damascus consent. That is why the American presence keeps groing every day.

Today though, one can only guess what such actions towards a sovereign state will lead to. It’s quite possible that they will provoke another stage of the bloody conflict instead of helping to seek the ways for solving it.

Mehmet Ersoy
Inside Syria Media Center