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Germany will next year end its reconnaissance and air-to-air refuelling missions that are part of U.S.-led operations against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, the government decided on Tuesday, a document seen by Reuters showed.
Germany, whose Nazi past makes military action a sensitive issue, has mainly carried out limited engagements abroad since World War Two, focusing on training, surveillance, medical rescue and peacekeeping, although it participated in the 1999 air offensive on what was then Yugoslavia.
Germany's air force will end the flights by Oct. 31, 2019, the document showed, without giving a reason for the decision.
Parts of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who are junior partners in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition, have raised scepticism towards the flights.
The number of U.S. diplomats in Syria has doubled as Daesh terrorists near a military defeat, U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis said on Tuesday.The U.S.-led coalition, along with local partners, has largely cleared the militant group from Iraq and Syria but remains concerned about its resurgence."Our diplomats there on the ground have been doubled in number. As we see the military operations becoming less, we will see the diplomatic effort now able to take (root)" Mattis said.He did not give a specific number.A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mattis was referring to State Department employees, including diplomats and personnel involved in humanitarian assistance, and the increase was recent.The United States does not have an embassy in Syria.In a sign of the threat still posed by the militant group, security forces in northern Syria’s Raqqa said on Sunday they had uncovered a Daesh sleeper cell which was plotting large attacks across the devastated city.Raqqa served as the de facto capital of Daesh’s self-proclaimed caliphate until it was retaken by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia alliance last October.In June, the SDF imposed a three-day curfew in Raqqa and declared a state of emergency, saying Daesh militants had infiltrated the city and were planning a bombing campaign."We are still in a tough fight, make no mistake about it," Mattis said.He said troops would work after the defeat of Daesh to ensure that the militant group did not return.Russia has held the balance of power in Syria, both on the battlefield and in the U.N.-led peace talks, for the past two years. It has helped Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recover huge amounts of lost territory without persuading him to agree to any political reforms.But nine rounds of talks, most of them in Geneva, have failed to bring the warring sides together to end a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.The United States has said it will pursue "a strategy of isolation", including sanctions, with its allies if Assad holds up a political process aimed at ending Syria’s seven-year-old war.
Number of US diplomats doubled in Syria: Pentagon chief
The German cabinet set no end date for a mission by German troops to train Iraqi military personnel, but it is due to be reviewed by April 30, the document showed.
The lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, will have the final say on the continued deployment of up to 800 German troops in the region.
The German aircraft taking part in the reconnaissance and refuelling missions are currently stationed at Azraq air base in Jordan.
German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said last month during a visit there that she could not rule out a longer-term deployment of her country's forces in the Middle East, amid a broader debate about a role for Germany in possible military action Syria.