On April 11, Col. Dorrian told Grasswire US military forces are on heightened alert in Syria after cruise missile strikes against Shayrat airbase, and Islamic State militants attempted to infiltrate At Tanf garrison in the south.
Text in the liveblog below is not verbatim. The full transcript is here.
Q: Support for Syrian Kurds and Arabs. Weapons from 1209s Congress funds?
Dorrian: I don’t have any update on that. Our efforts have been directed towards supplying resources, light weapons and equipment for the SAC.
CNN: Is the downturn in airstrikes weather, force protection or deconfliction?
Dorrian: I have been as specific as I can. All those things have to be taken into account.
NBC: Number of strikes near Raqqa, adjustments to operations re tensions. How are these manifesting?
Dorrian: When you are doing something that changes the dynamic, we don’t want to be reckless or do something that would cause a reaction. I won’t get into what the adjustments are.
Takeaway from .@OIRSpox presser: US won't talk abt troop numbers in Syria, won't talk about contact w/Russia to keep planes safely apart
— Paul McLeary (@paulmcleary) April 12, 2017
https://twitter.com/bkesling/status/852179269077872640