President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team at the Pentagon is looking into loosening the rules of engagement for troops fighting overseas, according to a report.
{mosads}The Trump team has asked for a list of restrictions, limitations and other “rules of engagement” on U.S. troops operating overseas, according to an NPR report.
That includes rules on how close U.S. special operators can get to the fight in Iraq and Syria and who they can target on the battlefield and how.
Trump often blasted the rules of engagement during the campaign trail, arguing they were too favorable to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“We’re sending leaflets down [saying] ‘in an hour we may be bombing your truck.’ Please remove yourself from — we are — we don’t know what we’re doing,” Trump told Fox News on April 13.
He has also pledged to be more aggressive in going after ISIS than the Obama administration, though has not given any specifics on what he would do.
A senior U.S. military official told a small group of reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday that “a lot of those discussions are ongoing” about what more the U.S. can do.
“We’re considering additional resources, some other potential kind of nuanced approaches with some surrogates, with surrogates out there — the debate will be in terms of U.S. boots on the ground — [the] kind of forever debate,” the official said.
The official said there were “an adequate number” of special operations forces in Iraq and Syria but that there was concern over the force that would hold Mosul after ISIS is pushed out of the Iraqi city.
The official said there could “potentially” be a need for a multinational force to assist the Iraqis in holding Mosul.
“The discussions of life after Mosul, life after Raqqa are happening in earnest right now, and arguably a little bit late, but I think those will be the texture of how do we get after the ISIL problem faster,” the official said, using another acronym for ISIS.