For the first time, President Barack Obama will deploy a small ground force to Syria to assist the fight against ISIS terrorists there.

For the first time, President Barack Obama will deploy a small ground force to Syria to assist the fight against ISIS terrorists there.

Though the White House is describing the move as an expansion of their current strategy to help local Syrian Arab and Kurdish forces fight ISIS, experts say the decision to send less than 50 American Special Operations forces to northern Syria represents a shift for Obama, who had been reluctant to put American ground troops in the country.

The U.S. currently has 3,500 troops in Iraq to protect American facilities and to coordinate the airstrike campaign against ISIS, also known as the Islamic State or ISIL, both inside Iraq and Syria. America has bombed ISIS targets in Syria since September 2014.

In a sign of how the White House hopes to portray the latest development as an enhancement of current strategy against ISIS in Syria, rather than a new shift in the war, Obama did not make public comments on Friday.

Instead, the White House deployed its press secretary, Josh Earnest, who said Obama’s decision is to “further intensify an element of our strategy already making an impact” and that the mission of U.S. troops is not to “lead the charge to take a hill” but to provide “some training, advising and assistance to moderate forces fighting ISIL.”

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Source: Obama Deploys American Troops to Help Fight ISIS in Syria