{"id":31451,"date":"2019-02-01T22:24:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T22:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31451"},"modified":"2019-02-01T22:24:13","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T22:24:13","slug":"us-senate-wants-troops-to-stay-in-syria-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31451","title":{"rendered":"US Senate wants troops to stay in Syria, Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nWASHINGTON: The Republican-led US Senate advanced largely symbolic legislation on Thursday opposing plans for any abrupt withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\nThe Senate voted 68-23 in favor of a non-binding amendment, drafted by Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying it was the sense of the Senate that militant groups in both countries continue to pose a \u201cserious threat\u201d to the US.<\/p>\n

\nMcConnell said he had introduced an amendment to a broader Middle East security bill urging a \u201ccontinued commitment\u201d until Al-Qaeda, Daesh and other groups are defeated.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019re not the world\u2019s policemen, but we are the leader of the free world, and it\u2019s incumbent upon the United States to lead, to maintain a global coalition against terror and to stand with our partners,\u201d McConnell said in a speech in the Senate.<\/p>\n

\nThe procedural vote to cut off debate meant that the amendment would be added to a broader Middle East security bill likely to come up for a final Senate vote next week.<\/p>\n

\nThe amendment acknowledges progress against Daesh and Al-Qaeda in Syria and Afghanistan but warns that \u201ca precipitous withdrawal\u201d without effective efforts to secure gains could destabilize the region and create a vacuum that could be filled by Iran or Russia.<\/p>\n

\nIt calls upon the Trump administration to certify conditions have been met for the groups\u2019 \u201cenduring defeat\u201d before any significant withdrawal from Syria or Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\nThursday\u2019s Senate action marked the second time in two months that the Republican-led Senate has supported a measure going against Trump\u2019s foreign policy, although legislation to change his policies has yet to become law.<\/p>\n

\nThe potential impact of Thursday\u2019s vote was uncertain, since the amendment McConnell offered was non-binding and there has been no indication of when, if ever, the broader Middle East security bill would come up for a House vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nTrump has decided to withdraw 2,000 US troops from Syria on the grounds that Daesh militants no longer pose a threat, saying on Twitter on Wednesday, \u201cWe have beaten them\u201d as he disputed Senate testimony by his director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, on Tuesday that the group still posed a threat.<\/p>\n

\nTrump said earlier on Thursday he would bring American troops home if a peace deal were reached to end 17 years of war in Afghanistan. The US and the Taliban have sketched the outlines for an eventual peace accord, a US special envoy said on Monday, but there was no sign the insurgent group had accepted key US demands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON: The Republican-led US Senate advanced largely symbolic legislation on Thursday opposing plans for any abrupt withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan. The Senate voted 68-23 in favor of a non-binding amendment, drafted by Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying it was the sense of the Senate that militant groups in both countries continue…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":31452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}