U.S. troops didn't make the decision to leave Syria and transfer to Iraq, but they're facing the consequences of their superiors anyway.
Kurdish bystanders reportedly hurled rotten fruit and stones at U.S. military vehicles as they made their away to the Iraqi border, where a number of troops will reportedly continue to work toward preventing the Islamic State's resurgence.
The Kurds consider the withdrawal from northern Syria a major betrayal, as it left Turkey an opening to invade the region. At one point the U.S. convoy was blocked by demonstrators, one of whom held a sign that read "To the U.S. Army who are leaving northeast Syria now tell your children that the children of the Kurds were killed by the Turks and we did nothing to protect them," The Wall Street Journal reports. A cease-fire was brokered last week, but both Turkey and Kurdish-led forces have accused the other of breaching it already.
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Cedric Leighton, a retired Air Force colonel, appeared Monday on CNN, where he theorized that the Kurds, who fought alongside the U.S. against ISIS for years, weren't frustrated with the individual troops, but the U.S. government. The soldiers, though, were actually present and subsequently became the subject of the Kurds' anger by default.
Leighton said he imagined the moment was "heartbreaking" for the troops in the vehicles. Read more at The Wall Street Journal.
