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US concedes it has double the number of troops in Syria as Biden prepares to send officials to Damascus

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US concedes it has double the number of troops in Syria as Biden prepares to send officials to Damascus

US soldiers inspect the site of reported Turkish shelling days earlier on an oil extraction facility on the outskirts of Rumaylan, in Syria's Kurdish-controlled northeastern Hasakeh province on October 28.

 Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource

(CNN) � The Pentagon announced the US currently has “approximately 2,000� troops in , more than double the previously disclosed number of 900, a Defense Department spokesperson said at a press briefing on Thursday.

“There are diplomatic and operational security considerations oftentimes with our deployments and some of those numbers, and [that is] certainly the case here,� said Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, who said that the 2,000 troops are all in Syria to fight ISIS.

On the same day, CNN learned the Biden administration is naming former ambassador and Syria envoy Daniel Rubinstein to lead the American efforts on Syria in their final weeks in office, a US official said. He is expected to join a delegation of senior US officials visiting Damascus in the coming days, the first high-level American visit since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad.

Rubinstein is expected to be joined by Barbara Leaf, the assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, and Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, two US officials said. Carstens has been in neighboring Lebanon and Jordan in the past two weeks leading the search for American journalist Austin Tice, who was detained in Syria over 12 years ago.

The US troops are focused on efforts to counter ISIS, one of the key issues confronting the international community in the wake of the Assad regime collapse. US officials have repeatedly stressed that the terrorist group must not be able to use the transition in Syria to rebuild.

The US delegation is expected to press the interim government on the set of principles outlined in Aqaba last weekend � expectations for a transition and new Syrian government related to human rights, combatting terrorism, and destruction of chemical weapons, one of the officials said.

They are also expected to discuss efforts to find Tice. These topics have been the focus of the US direct engagement with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed on Saturday. HTS is a US designated terrorist group.

The-CNN-Wire

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