WASHINGTON — President Obama announced on Friday that he had ordered several dozen Special Operations troops into Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria to assist local fighters battling the Islamic State, authorizing the first open-ended mission by American ground forces into the country.
While the deployment was small in scale, it was large in import for a president who until now had refused to send American ground troops for any sustained operations into a country devastated by more than four years of civil war. But with the fight against the Islamic State stalled, Mr. Obama concluded that a change was needed.
The White House said the troops would number “fewer than 50” and insisted that they would only train and advise the local forces, not play a direct combat role against the Islamic State, also known as ISISor ISIL. But administration officials acknowledged that Americans operating closer to the front lines could find themselves in firefights, and they left open the possibility of sending more such Special Operations troops into Syria in the future.
The responsibility that they have is not to lead the charge to take a hill, but rather to offer advice and assistance to those local forces about the best way they can organize their efforts to take the fight to ISIL or to take the hill inside of Syria,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary. “That is the role that they will be playing. It still means that they’re in a dangerous situation. It still means that they will have all of the equipment that they need to protect themselves if necessary.”
But Mr. Earnest insisted that this was not mission creep. “The mission hasn’t changed,” he said.
The deployment came just weeks after Russia had inserted itself into the multisided civil war to support President Bashar al-Assad, bombing opposition forces, including some supported by the United States. The White House on Friday did not characterize the president’s decision as a response, but it further complicates a kaleidoscopic battlefield with varied forces and sometimes murky allegiances.
Some security experts said the Special Forces would be useful in helping to better coordinate efforts by Kurdish forces, but the president’s decision quickly drew criticism from other vantage points. Republicans argued that the deployment was too little and too late to make a meaningful difference, while some Democrats said it showed that the United States was heading down a slippery slope toward greater involvement in a fratricidal war.
The deployment again raised the question of the president’s legal authority to order such a mission. While Iraq’s government has invited American forces into their country, Syria’s government has not. Mr. Obama has demanded, without success, that Mr. Assad step down from waging war against his own civilians. But the White House said Mr. Obama had the power under 2001 legislation passed by Congress to authorize war against Al Qaeda and its affiliates and that he was acting in defense of an ally, Iraq, which the Islamic State has attacked from Syrian territory.
Mr. Obama, citing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started under his predecessor, President George W. Bush, has long resisted being drawn into ground combat in Syria or back into ground combat in Iraq. But since Mr. Obama’s initial deployments of several hundred troops to Iraq to help local forces, the number has grown to about 3,500, and the roles have grown as well. An American soldier died last week in a joint commando raid to free prisoners held by the Islamic State. American commandos have also mounted raids into Syria for quick strikes.
The team now being sent into Syria will aid local forces with smoother and quicker access to equipment and logistical help, according to American officials, who discussed delicate details on the condition of anonymity. In addition, Mr. Obama authorized deploying A-10 Warthog planes and F-15 fighter jets to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey and instructed his advisers to consult with the Iraqi government about establishing a Special Operations task force to further efforts to target Islamic State leaders there. He also ordered more military assistance to Jordan and Lebanon.
But administration officials emphasized that Mr. Obama saw the military efforts as supporting Secretary of State John Kerry’s push for a diplomatic and political settlement to the Syrian war, with talks underway in Vienna.
The Pentagon wants to build a firewall behind forces allied with the United States — both the Kurds and the Syrian-Arab coalition backed by Mr. Obama — to allow these fighters to hold what territory they have captured. Part of the way to do that, one Defense Department official said, is to ensure that equipment is delivered and that subsequent supplies will reach these forces quickly.
