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		</div><p>The United States will send armoured vehicles and combat troops into eastern Syria to keep oil fields from potentially falling into the hands of Islamic State militants, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said on Friday.</p>
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<p>It was the latest sign that extracting the military from Syria is more uncertain and complicated than President Donald Trump is making it out to be. Though Mr Trump repeatedly says he is pulling out of Syria, the reality on the ground is different.</p>
<p>Adding armoured reinforcements in the oil-producing area of Syria could mean sending several hundred US troops – even as a similar number are being withdrawn from a separate mission closer to the border with Turkey where Russian forces have been filling the vacuum.</p>
<p>Mr Esper described the added force as “mechanised,” which means it likely will include armoured vehicles such as Bradley armoured infantry carriers and possibly tanks, although details were still to be worked out.</p>
<figure id="attachment_142797" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-142797" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-142797" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/A5B9C62E-384C-48BE-A642-046AFD07AC99.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="400" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-142797" class="wp-caption-text">Russian military patrols near Syrian and Turkish border in north Syria</figcaption></figure>
<p>This reinforcement would introduce a new dimension to the US military presence, which largely has been comprised of special operations forces not equipped with tanks or other armoured vehicles.</p>
<p>Mr Esper spoke at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where he consulted with American allies.</p>
<p>Sending an armoured force to eastern Syria would partially reverse the ongoing shrinkage of the US troop presence in Syria.</p>
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<p>Mr Trump has ordered the withdrawal of nearly all 1,000 US troops who had been partnering with a Syrian Kurdish-led militia against the Islamic State group. That withdrawal is proceeding even as Mr Esper announced the plan to put reinforcements in the oil-producing area.</p>
<p>Speaking to reporters on Friday at the White House, Mr Trump said the US-brokered agreement with Turkey to halt its offensive against US-supporting Syrian Kurdish fighters was a win for his administration.</p>
<p>That offensive began after Mr Trump announced US troops would not stand in the way, though he also said the US would punish Turkey’s economy if the country acted inhumanely.</p>
<blockquote><p>We are doing well in Syria, with Turkey and everybody else that we&#8217;re dealing with</p></blockquote>
<p>He also said anew on Friday that “we’re getting our troops out” of Syria, without mentioning Mr Esper’s announcement.</p>
<p>“We are doing well in Syria, with Turkey and everybody else that we’re dealing with,” Mr Trump said. “We have secured the oil … We have a couple of people that came knocking, we said don’t knock. And I think I would say that things are going very well.”</p>
<p>White House officials would not clarify whom he was referring to as “knocking.”</p>
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