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WASHINGTON / Reuters
The US government’s aid chief, Mark Green, made an unannounced visit to Raqqa in Syria, the most senior US civilian official from the Trump administration to visit the war-struck northern city months after it was retaken from IS.
Green was accompanied by head of the US Central Command General Joseph Votel as the United States ramps up post-conflict stabilisation in areas where IS has been driven out by American-backed militia.
The visit comes after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last week signalled an open-ended US military presence in Syria, part of a broader strategy to prevent IS’s resurgence and pave the way for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step aside.
Lessons from conflicts in Libya and Iraq show that unless liberated areas are quickly stabilized they could easily fall back into the hands of militants.
“We’re at the point where people really do want to go home so this is the moment to seize,†Green, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), said in a phone interview with Reuters after his seven-hour visit to Raqqa and the Ain Issa camp for people displaced by fighting.